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POETS AND NOVELISTS 



POETS AND NOVELISTS 



A SERIES OF LITERARY STUDIES 



BY 



GEORGE BARNETT SMITH 






NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON & CO., BROADWAY 

1876 

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I INSCRIBE THIS VOLUME 



ROBERT BROWNING 



IN REMEMBRANCE OF HIS PERSONAL KINDNESS 



AS A TRIBUTE TO HIS GENIUS 



G. B. S. 



London : 1875 



PREFACE. 



The following Studies — however defective in other re- 
spects — possess some claim to exhaustiveness, and con- 
sequently I have ventured to hope that with many 
persons they may have a permanent value. They have 
been revised, and in some cases extended, from the 
leading Reviews and Magazines. Notwithstanding, how- 
ever, the favourable reception the Essays met with on 
their original appearance, I might not now have collected 
them, and endeavoured to give to them ' a local habitation 
and a name,' but for the fact that I have been repeatedly 
pressed to do so by numerous individuals — whose tribute 
(in some cases, at least) I cannot but regard as flattering 
— who were desirous of possessing them in a volume. I 
can only trust that the public and the press will now en- 
dorse their verdict. The subjects of the papers, however 
imperfectly treated, are amongst the most attractive which 
can be named for lovers of books. With regard to the 
Essay on Thomas Love Peacock, I may be pardoned for 



PREFACE. 



claiming that it was the first full and substantial recog- 
nition of his genius; since it appeared, an admirable 
edition of his works has been issued, and I am glad 
that this really remarkable writer has received a much 
fuller attention than he enjoyed during his lifetime, and 
even down to the last two or three years. As for the 
volume generally, my end will have been answered if it 
should in any appreciable degree strengthen the taste for 
our noble English Literature. 

G. B. S. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY ... I 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING . . . . 57 

THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK . . . .Ill 

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE . . . . . 151 

THE BRONTES . . . . . . 207 

HENRY FIELDING . . . . . . 251 

ROBERT BUCHANAN ..... 307 

ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS . . * . . 365 



HLLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 



[EDINBURGH REVIEW] 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 

The pure humourist is one of the rarest of literary- 
characters. His nature is not content with detecting 
foibles, nor his pen with pointing them out for derision ; 
his purpose is infinitely higher and nobler. The humour- 
ist must have emotions, nerves, sensibilities, and that 
marvellous sympathy mth human nature which enables 
him to change places at will with other members of his 
species. Humour does not produce the sneer of 
Voltaire j it rather smiles through the tear of Montaigne. 
' True humour,' it has been wisely said, ' springs not 
more from the head than from the heart ; it is not con- 
tempt, its essence is love ; it issues not in laughter, but 
in still smiles, which lie far deeper. It is a sort of in- 
verse sublimity ; exalting as it were into our affections 
what is below us, while sublimity draws down into our 
affections what is above us. It is, in fact, the bloom and 
perfume, the purest effluence of a deep, fine, and loving 
nature.' Without humour, society would exist in Ice- 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



landic snows : wit, like the winter sun, might gUnt upon 
the icebergs, but they would not be plastic in its glance 
—calm, lofty, and cold they must remain. But humour 
is the summer heat that generates while it smiles— the 
power which touches dead things and revivifies them 
with its generous warmth and geniality. Wit engages 
and amuses the individual intellect ; humour knits hearts 
together ; is, in truth, in a broad sense, that ' touch of 
nature which makes the whole world kin.' Now the 
world may be regarded as being composed of three 
classes, viz., those of us who laugh, those with whom we 
laugh, and those at whom we laugh ; and the tenderest 
solicitude is experienced by each unit of humanity lest, 
through some fortuitous circumstances, he should irre- 
trievably find himself a denizen of the last-named class. 
To some of the first class is given the power of directing 
the laugh of others, and this power is current as wit \ 
when to the faculty of originating ridicule is added the 
power of concentrating pity or pathos upon the subject, 
this may be styled humour. But the irony must be 
subjugated to the feeling. The heart must love while 
the countenance may smile. It will, then, be perceived, 
in view of these distinctions, how the humourist may 
assert a claim in all great and essential things superior 
to that which can be advanced by the wit. Humourists 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 5 

are the salt of the national intellectual life. England, 
who occasionally claims a questionable superiority in 
some respects over other nations, may, in the growth of 
genuine humour, be allowed the pre-eminence, Germany 
approaching her perhaps in the nearest degree. What 
other literature, since the days of Elizabeth, can show 
such a roll of humourists as that which is inscribed with 
the names (amongst others) of Richardson, Addison, 
Steele, Prior, Gay, Smollett, Fielding, Sterne, and Gold- 
smith? Yet after the closing names of this galaxy a 
dearth was witnessed like that which immediately pre- 
ceded their advent. It appears as though the soil of 
literature, having grown to its utmost capacity the pro- 
duct of humour, demanded time for recuperating its 
powers. During the past thirty or forty years another 
growth sprang up, and Hood, Lamb, and other inheritors 
of the marvellous gift have enriched the world with the 
perfume of their lives and works, i^mongst the latest 
band of humourists, however, there is no name more 
remarkable or more justly distinguished than that which 
is now under consideration. 

From the operation of various causes, the works of 
Thackeray have not hitherto enjoyed a circulation com- 
mensurate with their intrinsic merits. The sale of the 
best of his writings in his lifetime fell far short of the 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



popular demand for the works of Scott or Dickens. But 
their hold on society, and the recognition of their per- 
manent value and excellence, have gone on steadily 
increasing with each succeeding year, and very recently 
new and complete editions of them have been issued, 
which are within the reach of all readers. At this period, 
then, it may be fitting to consider the life's work of this 
deepest and purest of modern English satirists. 

It was in these pages that the first substantial recog- 
nition of the genius of the author of ' Vanity Fair ' ap- 
peared : a quarter of a century has elapsed since then \ 
but in the short period between that epoch in his career 
and his death, a series of brilHant works issued rapidly 
from his pen — a pen facile to charm, to instruct, and to 
reprove. These works have fully justified the terms of 
praise in which we referred to his first great fiction. Yet 
it would be difficult to name a writer of fiction of equal 
excellence who had so little of the inventive or imagi- 
native faculty. Keenness of observation and a nice 
appreciation of character supplied him with all the ma- 
terials of his creations. He wrote from the experience 
of life, and the foibles of mankind which he satirised 
were those that had fallen under his notice in the vicissi- 
tudes of his own career, or might sometimes be traced in 
the recesses of his own disposition. The key, therefore, 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 7 

to Thackeray's works is to be found in his Hfe ; and few 
Hterary biographies would be more interesting, if it were 
written with a just and discriminating pen. We would 
venture to suggest to his accomplished daughter, who 
has shown by her own writings that some at least of his 
gifts have descended to her by inheritance, that she 
should undertake a task which no one else can fulfil with 
so natural and delicate a feeling of her father's genius. 
Probably it might already have been attempted, but for 
the extreme repugnance of Thackeray himself to allow 
his own person to be brought before the world, or to 
suffer the sanctity of private correspondence to be in- 
vaded. Nobody wrote more amusing letters ; but he 
wrote them not for the public. As it is, even his birth 
and descent have not been correctly stated in the current 
works of the day. His great-grandfather was in the 
Church, once Master of Harrow, and afterwards an 
Archdeacon. He had seven sons, one of whom, also 
named William Makepeace Thackeray^ entered the Civil- 
Service of India, became a Member of Council, and sat 
at the Board with Warren Hastings, some of whose 
minutes he signed. The son of this gentleman, and the 
father of our novelist, was Richmond Thackeray, also a 
Civil servant, who died, in 18 16, at the early age of thirty. 
Thackeray himself was born at Calcutta, in 181 1, and 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



was sent to England when he was seven years old. On 
the voyage home the vessel touched at St. Helena, where 
the child saw Napoleon Bonaparte. The black servant 
who attended him attributed to the ex-Emperor the most 
ravenous propensities. ' He eats,' said the sable exagge- 
rator, ' three sheep every day, and all the children he can 
lay hands on.' The joke figured years afterwards in one 
of Thackeray's sketches. This early connection with 
India left its mark in his memory, and the pleasant allu- 
sions to the great Ramchunder and the Bundelcund Bank 
were suggested by the traditions of his own infancy, He 
inherited from his father (who died when he was five 
years old) a considerable fortune, part of which had 
fortunately been settled on his mother, who was re- 
married to Major Carmichael Smyth. The remainder 
was left at his own disposal, and rendered him an object 
of envy and admiration to his less fortunate contempo- 
raries. The boy was sent to the Charter House, where 
he remained for some years ; and here again the reader 
familiar with his works may trace a multitude of allusions 
to his school-days under Dr. Russell, then the master of 
that school. About the year 1828 he went up to Trinity 
College, Cambridge, where he was the friend and con- 
temporary of Tennyson, Venables, John Mitchell Kem- 
ble, Charles and Arthur Buller, John Sterhng, R. Monck- 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 9 

ton Milnes, and of that distinguished set of men, some of 
whom had preceded him by a year or two, who formed 
what was called the Society of the Apostles, though he 
was not himself a member of that society. It must be 
confessed that at Cambridge Thackeray gave no signs of 
distinguished ability. He was chiefly known for his in- 
exhaustible drollery, his love of repartee, and for his 
humourous command of the pencil. But his habits were 
too desultory for him to enter the lists of academic com- 
petition, and, like Arthur Pendennis, he left the Univer- 
sity without taking a degree. At the age of twenty-one 
he entered upon London life \ he visited Weimar, which 
he afterwards portrayed as the Court of Pumpernickel ; 
and he was frequently in Paris, where his mother resided 
since her second marriage. His fortune and position in 
society seemed to permit him to indulge his tastes and 
to live as a gentleman at large. But the dream was of 
short duration. Within a few months he contracted a 
sleeping partnership which placed his property in the 
hands of a man who turned out to be insolvent, and the 
fortune he relied on was lost before he had enjoyed it. 
The act was one of gross imprudence, no doubt, and he 
suffered bitterly for it ; but it is not true, as has some- 
times been supposed, from his lively description of scenes 
of folly and vice, that he lost his money by his own per- 



lo POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

sonal extravagance. Thus, then, he found himself, at two 
or three and twenty, with very reduced means, for he 
had nothing to Hve on but the allowance his mother and 
grandmother were able to make him \ with no profession, 
with desultory tastes and habits, and Avith no definite 
prospects in life before him. His first scheme was to 
turn artist and to cultivate painting in the Louvre, for he 
now resided chiefly with his relatives in Paris. But in 
the art of design he was, in truth, no more than an ac- 
complished amateur. The drawings with which he after- 
wards illustrated his own books are full of expression, 
humour, grace, and feeling; but they want the correct- 
ness and mastery of the well-trained artist. He turned 
then, with more hope, at the age of thirty, to the resources 
of the pen. But it is remarkable that all his literary pro- 
ductions of this, his earlier period, were anonymous ; and 
his literary efforts, though not wanting in pungency and 
an admirable style, were scattered in multifarious publi- 
cations, and procured for him but small profit and no 
fame. These years, from thirty to seven-and-thirty, 
which ought to have been the brightest, were the most 
cheerless of his existence. He wrote letters in the 
* Times ' under the signature of Manlius Pennialinus. 
He wrote an article on Lord Brougham in the ' British 
and Foreign Review,' which excited attention. But po- 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. ii 

litical writing — even political sarcasm — was not his forte ; 
and when politics ceased to be a joke, they became to 
him a bore. Amongst other experiments he accepted 
the editorship of a London daily newspaper, called ' The 
Constitutional and Public Ledger,' but — like its name- 
sake, which had been started and edited, a few years 
before, by another man of great literary genius, destined 
to achieve in after-life a more illustrious career — this 
journal lingered for ten months and then expired. The 
foundation of ' Punch ' was a work after Thackeray's own 
heart, and he contributed largely to the earlier numbers. 
But it was not till 1841 that he really began to make his 
mark in Hterature, under the well-known pseudonym of 
Michael Angelo Titmarsh, a name in which the dream ot 
the artist still haunted the fancy of the humourist. In 
the midst of his perplexities, with that genuine tenderness 
of feeling which lay at the bottom of all his sarcasms, 
Thackeray fell in love, and married a young lady who 
might have sat for the portrait of his own Amelia, but 
who was not better endowed than himself with the world's 
goods, and much less able than himself to battle with 
adverse fortune. But his domestic Hfe was overclouded 
by a greater calamity than these, and the malady of his 
wife threw a permanent shadow over the best affections 
of his heart, which were thenceforward devoted to his 



12 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

children alone. Such was the school in which the genius 
of Thackeray was educated. It was not imaginative ; it 
was not spontaneous ; it was the result of a hard and 
varied experience of life and the world. It left him 
somewhat prone to exaggerate the folHes and baseness of 
mankind, but it never froze or extinguished his love and 
sympathy for justice, tenderness, and truth. In 1847, 
when he was six-and-thirty years of age, he braced him- 
self up, for the first time, for a great and continuous 
literary effort, and he came before the world, which 
hitherto had known him only as a writer of jests and 
magazine articles, as the author of 'Vanity Fair.' His 
style, which was the result of the most careful and fasti- 
dious study, had now attained a high degree of perfec- 
tion. In the comparison which was naturally drawn 
between himself and Dickens, then in the heyday of 
popularity, it was obvious that in the command of the 
EngHsh language Thackeray was incomparably the 
master. His style was to the style of Dickens what marble 
is to clay ; and although he never attained to the suc- 
cessful vogue of his contemporary, in his lifetime, it was 
evident to the critical eye that the writings of Thackeray 
had in them that which no time could dim or obliterate. 

With this novel, then, so surprising in its frankness 
and in its knowledge of human nature, commenced a 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 13 

career which could know no repression. A mine of gold 
had been struck, and the nuggets were cast up freely by 
the hands of the hard and honest worker. In the writing 
of books admired by every hater of pretence, and the 
delivery of lectures which were as new in their style and 
treatment as his novels, the rest of the life of Thackeray 
passed away. The last fifteen years of it were years of 
success, celebrity, and comparative affluence. He had 
attained a commanding position in literature and in 
society, though it must be acknowledged that except in 
a very small circle of intimate friends, he rarely put forth 
any brilliant social qualities. How he impaled snobbery 
in ' Punch ' and gave a new impetus to serial literature 
by his editorship of the ' Cornhill Magazine,' are facts 
too widely disseminated to be dilated upon, A most 
good-natured editor, conscientious as well as kind, was 
Thackeray ; but the work was not to his taste, and after 
a short period he relinquished it at a large pecuniary 
sacrifice. To that terrible person, the owner of a ' re- 
jected contribution,^ he was frequently most generous, 
breaking the literary' disappointment with the solace of a 
bank-note in many instances. But finding it painfully 
difficult to say ' No ' when it became imperative to 
reject would-be contributors, he fled from the field in 
despair. To a friend he said on one occasion, 'How 



14 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

can I go into society with comfort ? I dined the other 

day at 's, and at the table were four gentlemen 

whose masterpieces of literary art I had been compelled 
to decline with thanks.' So he informed his readers for 
the last time that he would ' not be responsible for re- 
jected communications.' On Christmas Eve, 1863, came 
the event which touched the heart of Britain with a 
genuine grief. The not altogether uneventful career of 
one of the truest and best of men was closed. When it 
was known that the author of ' Vanity Fair ' would charm 
the world no longer by his truthful pictures of English 
life, the grief was what we would always have it be when 
a leader of the people in war, arts, or letters is stricken 
down in the strife — deep, general, and sincere. 

Postponing for the moment a consideration of what 
we conceive to be the leading characteristics of 
Thackeray's genius, a certain measure of insight into the 
author's mind may be gained by a glance at his works — 
premising that they are not taken in strict chronological 
order. First, with regard to his more important novels. 
The key with which he opened the door of fame was un- 
doubtedly ' Vanity Fair.' Though other writings of a 
less ambitious nature had previously come from his pen, 
until the production of this book there was no evidence 
that Thackeray would ever assume the high position in 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 15 

letters now unanimously awarded to him. But here, at 
any rate, was demonstrative proof that a new star had 
arisen. And yet, general as was this belief, no intelligible 
grounds were for a time assigned for it. The novelist 
himself always regarded his first work as his best ; though 
we think that in this respect he has followed the example 
of Milton and other celebrated authors, and chosen as 
his favourite that which is not absolutely the best, though 
it may be equal to any which succeeded it. Probably 
the book was one round whose pages a halo had been 
thrown by various personal circumstances. But the 
famous yellow covers in which the ' Novel without a 
Hero ' originally appeared were not at first sought after 
with much avidity. Soon, however, it became known 
that a new delineator of life was at work in society, and 
one whose pen was as keen as the dissecting knife of the 
surgeon. An author had sprung up who dared to shame 
society by a strong and manly scorn, and by proclaiming 
that it ought to loathe itself in dust and ashes. The 
world was not unwilling to read the reflection of its 
weaknesses and its vices mirrored with so much wit, 
originality, and genius. How account otherwise for the 
favour which the work subsequently attained, when it 
lacked as a novel many of those characteristics for which 
novels are most eagerly read ? To the initial difticulty 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



of a story without a hero, the writer had voluntarily 
added that of a lack of consecutiveness and complete- 
ness. It was probably begun by the author not only 
without a hero, but without a plot. We doubt whether 
any of his novels were written on a plan. Several of them 
evidently turned under his pen into something quite 
different from what he had originally intended. 'The 
Virginians ' completely reversed, for instance, his first 
conception. But the novelist had what he considered a 
greater end in view than mere plot, one which has been 
well summed up by La Bruyere, who says : — ' Tout 
r esprit d'un auteur coiisiste a bien definh' et a bie)i peindre' 
This sentence concisely expresses the fulfilled genius of 
Thackeray. His mode of narrative consists in a series 
of pictures after the manner of Hogarth, but their popu- 
larity sufficiently attested their accuracy. There is no 
one character in ' Vanity Fair ' which can be deemed 
perfectly satisfactory — not that the reader always cares 
for that, preferring sometimes the most thoroughpaced 
villainy (viewing authorship as a question of art) to the 
most superlative virtue. Becky Sharp, the unprincipled 
governess, has been as unduly detested as Amelia Sedley 
has been too lavishly praised. There is nothing in the 
earlier chapters to prove that Becky Sharp was naturally 
and entirely unprincipled and unscrupulous, and it was 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 17 

obviously the intention of the author to show that society 
might justly assume a great portion of the responsibility 
for the after-development of those qualities. With 
certain ground to work upon, and given conditions as 
adjuncts, the influence of society on natures like Becky 
Sharp's would be to encrust them with selfishness and 
superinduce complete hypocrisy. If heroine there be in 
the novel it is this clever adventuress, and except on 
some half-dozen occasions it is scarcely possible to avoid 
a pity approaching to contempt for the character of 
Amelia Sedley, who is intended to personify the good 
element an author generally casts about to discover when 
concocting a story. Captain Dobbin is overdrawn, and 
one is well-nigh tempted to wish that he had a little less 
virtue and a little more selfishness. While we love him 
he has a tendency to make us angry. The most masterly 
touches in the volume are those in which the portraits of 
the Marquis of Steyne and of Sir Pitt Crawley are 
sketched. The aristocracy furnish the villains and the 
most contemptible specimens of the race, whilst the 
excellent persons come from the ranks of the middle 
class and the poor — their namby-pambyism, however, 
now and then reducing their claims to our regard. The 
author speaks for the most part in his own person^ and 
herein lies one of the principal reasons for the success of 

c 



1 8 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

the book. We feel the satirist at our elbow ; he is not 
enveloped in thick folds in the distance ; as we read his 
trenchant observations and withering sarcasms we can 
almost see the glances of scorn or of pity which he would 
assume when engaged in his task. Well might the world 
exclaim that this was no novice who thus wTOte of its 
meannesses and its glory, its virtues and its vices. This 
novel lifted him at once into the position of one of 
the ablest writers of subjective fiction. It is especially 
remarkable in connection with 'Vanity Fair' to note 
the extremely little conversational matter in a tale of 
this great length ; another proof that the strength of 
the author lay not in the conventional groove of the 
novelist, but in those other powers of Thackeray — rare 
observation, an acute penetration of motives, an abhor- 
rence of sham or pretence, and an entirely new and 
genuine humour. 

In ' Pendennis,' the next great work by Thackeray, 
there is not only some approach to a consecutive plot, 
but we are inclined to think finer drawing of individual 
character than in its predecessor. There is not so much 
brilliancy of writing, but there is a considerable advance 
in the art of the novelist. With all the graphic touches 
which took form in the features of Becky Sharp, Amelia 
Sedley, and Captain Dobbin, there is nothing in the 



WILLIAM MAKEPEA CE THA CKERA V. 1 9 

earlier work to compare with the portraits of George 
Warrington, Helen Pendennis, and Laura. The hero, 
Arthur, is one who succumbs to the ordinary temptations 
of Hfe, and has very little attaching to him of that ro- 
mance in which a hero is generally expected to be en- 
shrined. Because it was so natural the book was not 
regarded at first as very successful : nothmg could be 
truer to the original than the manner in which Arthur 
Pendennis is sketched, and his love passages with Miss 
Fotheringay, the actress, are naively related ; but it was 
of course impossible to become inspired with the same 
feelings towards him as are excited by the chivalric 
heroes of Scott. A man who resorts in the morning to a 
bottle of soda-water to correct the exuberant spirits of 
the night before is not calculated to awaken much per- 
sonal adoration. He is too fallible, and the novel-reading 
community demands sinless heroes and heroines ere it 
consents to raise them to the lofty pedestal accorded to 
its greatest favourites. There is no exaggeration in a 
single portrait to be found in ' Pendennis ; ' all are true ; 
are true to the minutest detail, and the author has simply 
acted as the photographer to his clients— he 'nothing 
extenuates or sets down aught in malice.' The early 
follies of Pendennis, and his University career — which 
was chiefly noticeable for splendid suppers and dealings 

c 2 



20 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

with money-lenders at a hundred per cent.— are de- 
scribed with no sparing pen. The case is typical of 
thousands now, and is no credit to the youth of the 
Universities. ' Only wild oats,' the apologists for under- 
graduate extravagance remind us ; but there is no natural 
necessity that this particular University crop should be 
sown ; many men, worthy men too, are compelled to go 
through life without the satisfaction of having ruined their 
friends by their follies. The result overtook Pendennis 
which righteously succeeds, or ought to succeed, to dissi- 
pation and neglect of study. When the degree examina- 
tions came, ' many of his own set who had not half his 
brains, but a little regularity and constancy of occupation, 
took high places in the honours, or passed with decent 
credit. And where in the Hst was Pen the superb, Pen 
the wit and dandy, Pen the poet and orator? Ah, where 
was Pen the widow's darling and sole pride? Let us 
hide our heads and shut up the page. Tlie lists came 
out ; and a dreadful rumour rushed through the Univer- 
sity that Pendennis of Boniface was plucked.' Yet 
though he fled from the University the widow went on 
loving him still, just the same, and httle Laura .hugged to 
her heart with a secret passion the image of the young 
scapegrace. So inexplicable and . So devoted is the 
character of woman ! The little orphan paid the debts 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 21 

of the dashing, clever hero. More sketches of society 
with its hollowness and pretence follow this revelation, 
and then we find Arthur in the modern Babylon soon to 
become the friend of George Warrington, who was des- 
tined to be his guide, philosopher, and friend. The 
brains of our hero now became of service, and in dwell- 
ing on his intellectual labour Thackeray details the secret 
history of a literary hack, together with the story of the 
establishment of a newspaper for ' the gentlemen of 
England,' the prospectus of which was written by Captain 
Shandon in Fleet Prison. Brilliant indeed were the in- 
tellectual Bohemians who wrote for that witty and critical 
journal. There are no more interesting or amusing 
sketches in the whole of the author's novels than those 
relating to this paper, and the intimate knowledge dis- 
played in the details of the schemes of rival printers and 
publishers was a part of the author's own dearly-bought 
experience. Arthur is strangely consoled in his endea- 
vours to live by the aid of literature by his uncle Major 
Pendennis, who assures him that ' poetry and genius, and 
that sort of thing, were devilishly disreputable ' in his 
time. But success waits on him, and he can afford to 
smile at the eccentric officer. Were it not for the closing 
pages of * Pendennis ' we could almost feel angry with 
Thackeray for challenging our interest in Arthur. But 



22 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



the lesson he had to teach compensates for all disappoint- 
ments. No stones are to be unnecessarily thrown at the 
erring, and the shadows in Pendennis's life are to teach 
others how to avoid similar errors. The unworthy often 
run away with the honours. The history of Pendennis 
closes with fruition for the hero, while the nobler cha- 
racter, George Warrington, suffers loss. But then the 
novelist justly observes : — 

' If the best men do not draw the great prizes in life, we 
know that it has been so ordained by the Ordainer of the 
lottery ; we own, and see daily, how the false and worthless 
live and prosper, while the good are called away, and the 
dear and young perish untimely. We perceive in every 
man's life maimed happiness, the frequent falling, the boot- 
less endeavour, the struggle of right and wrong, in which 
the strong often succumb and the swift fail ; we see flowers 
of good blooming in foul places, as in the most lofty and 
splendid fortunes, flaws of vice and meanness, and stains of 
evil, and, knowing how mean the best of us is, let us give a 
hand of charity to Arthur Pendennis, with all his faults and 
shortcomings, who does not claim to be a hero, but only a 
man and a brother.' 

Passing by temporarily the lectures on the Humourists 
in order to preserve the chain of novels unbroken, we 
come to a work which is perhaps the most satisfactory 
of all Thackeray's writings, regarding them purely in 
the light of literary art. There are few productions in 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 23 

the world of fiction which exhibit the finish of ' Esmond,' 
for the author has not only drawn his characters with 
unusual skill, but delighted the reader with repeated 
bursts of natural, unaffected eloquence, in language 
sedulously borrowed from the age of Steele and Addison. 
As regards style, indeed, 'Esmond' is an incredible 
tour- de-force^ and is by far the most original of all his 
books. For the first time the author transplants us to 
that age which afterwards became of such absorbing 
interest to him that he could not tear himself away from 
it ; so imbued was he altogether with the literature of 
the time of Queen Anne and George I. that at last he 
seemed to live in it. At his death he had another work 
in contemplation whose period was fixed in the eighteenth 
century. It is easy even to the uninitiated to discover 
that Thackeray wrote this history of Esmond, a colonel 
in the service of Her Majesty Queen Anne, thoroughly 
con a?nore. He revelled in his theme and in the associa- 
tions it brought with it. Genial, witty Dick Steele and 
Mr. Joseph Addison are introduced to us, and we see 
them, along with Esmond, drinking the Burgundy, which, 
says Addison, 'my Lord Halifax sent me.' We are 
carried through portions of Marlborough's campaigns, 
and the spirit blazes with enthusiasm at the pluck which 
wrought such valiant deeds, and brought undying honour 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



on the British arms. The avarice and ambition of the 
brilliant Churchill are forgotten as the plans of his con- 
summate genius are unravelled. Esmond's career with 
General Webb is traced with intense interest, and the 
scenes become as real to us as they undoubtedly seemed 
to the author. The plot of the book is not of the 
happiest description, the machinations of the Jacobites 
being interwoven largely with the thread of the narrative. 
The hero loves in the outset Beatrix Esmond, daughter 
of a viscount, and the devotion he exhibits to the idol of 
his heart and his imagination is something extraordinary 
even in comparison with the loves of other heroes. 
Beatrix, however, was unworthy of it: homage she would 
receive, true passion she seemed incapable of returning. 
Self-willed to a degree, the noble nature of such a man 
as Esmond was as a sealed book to her. His gravest 
feelings she treated with levity, and at length her con- 
duct with the Pretender broke the spell, and threw down 
from its lofty pedestal, once and for ever, the idol he had 
set up. Like the marble it was beautiful to the eye; like 
the marble it was cold and insensible to the touch. 
Finally, Esmond contracts a union with Beatrix's mother, 
Lady Castlewood, still handsome and comparatively 
young, and who had always cherished the memory of 
Esmond as one whom she dearly loved in his youth. 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 25 

Her affection for him had never waned. The vohime 
closes with their settlement on the banks of the Potomac, 
in a calm and serene happiness. The autobiographer, in 
describing their Virginian estate and Transatlantic life, 
says : — ' Our diamonds are turned into ploughs and axes 
for our plantations, and into negroes, the happiest and 
merriest, I think, in all this country; and the only jewel 
by which my wife sets any store, and from which she 
hath never parted, is that gold button she took from my 
arm on the day when she visited me in prison, and which 
she wore ever after, as she told me, on the tenderest 
heart in the world.' In reading ' Esmond,' so cleverly is 
the story told, and with such ease and truthfulness, that 
the reader does not stay to note what a difficult task the 
novelist has set himself in venturing to deal with a plot 
more than commonly unattractive. Thackeray, however, 
is nowhere the slave of a story; and in sometimes deli- 
berately fighting against conventional construction and 
probability, he has proved by his success in enlisting 
interest and sympathy that he wielded the pen of a 
master. The world can forgive its hero for not doing 
what ninety-nine heroes in a hundred perform, when his 
history is related with the fidelity and ability which dis- 
tinguish ' Esmond.' There are more characters carefully 
and vividly drawn in this book than are to be found in 



26 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

the entire novels of many popular writers; and that 
pungency of Thackeray's pen which cuts through indi- 
vidualities as sharply and clearly as the diamond cuts 
through the glass, is here in full operation. It was as 
superior to its predecessor as the latter was to almost 
all the novels of the time. In regard to historical por- 
traiture it has never been excelled; to read it once is to 
be struck with its eloquence and power ; to read it a 
second time is to be impressed with its fidelity and 
photographic accuracy. 

Thackeray rose to the perfection of his art in fiction 
in 'The Newcomes;' and it is such books as this which 
show us what a fine teacher and instructor the novel may 
become in the hands of genius. In the representation 
of human nature this story is worthy of Richardson or 
Fielding. It is the chef-d^mcvre, in our opinion, of its 
author. There is not lacking that infinite sarcasm 
observable in previous works, but the writer has touched 
more deeply the springs of human sympathy. Within 
the whole scope of fiction there is no single character 
which stands out more nobly for the admiration of 
readers to all time than that of Colonel Newcome. 
The painter of that portrait alone might well lay claim to 
an undying canvas. As faithfully and as naturally as 
though limned by the hand of Sir Joshua Reynolds 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 27 

himself the features of the old soldier appear before us. 
Having written ' The Newcomes/ Thackeray may be 
said to have shaken hands as an equal with the two or 
three great masters of fiction. If it be the province of 
the novelist to depict human nature as it is, it must be 
conceded, at any rate, that there was nothing else left 
for the author to do to entitle him to the highest honours 
of his class. Nor is it a little singular too that in the 
story just mentioned Thackeray has given us the best 
female character which has proceeded from his fertile 
brain — Ethel Newcome. She comes to us as the sweet 
teacher of more goodness and religion than a whole 
company of preachers. We are inclined to agree with 
her cousin Clive Newcome that to look into her eyes 
would be almost too much for such unworthy imperfect 
creatures as men, and that she is one of that rare class of 
beings sent into the world occasionally to tell us that 
Heaven has not altogether forgotten us. What a story 
of society ' The Newcomes ' is ! First we have the 
Newcome family, with Sophia Alethea, whose mission 
and self-imposed duty it was ' to attend to the interests 
of the enslaved negro; to awaken the benighted Hot- 
tentot to a sense of the truth; to convert Jews, Turks, 
Infidels, and Papists ; to arouse the indifferent and often 
blasphemous mariner; to guide the washerwoman in the 



28 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

right way ; to head all the pubHc charities of her sect; 
and do a thousand secret kindnesses that none knew of ; 
to answer myriads of letters, pension endless ministers, 
and supply their teeming wives with continuous baby 
linen/ — all which she did ' womanfully ' for nigh fourscore 
years. Then we have the Honeymans, with the singular 
story of the Rev. Charles Honeyman. CHve Newcome's 
uncles occupy a large portion of the narrative, and Sir 
Barnes Newcome appears and contrives to earn our 
unmitigated contempt. Grey Friars looms into view, 
with the hero Clive at school within its precincts. Good 
James Binnie is introduced, and honest J. J. Ridley. 
Electioneering contests, with all their humour, are por- 
trayed, while the scheming members of society are also 
flayed for their snobbery. From the heartlessness of 
vampires and fools— the Floracs, the Kews, &c. — we 
are pleased to hurry away and to light upon such pas- 
sages of sweetness and beauty as this, where the Colonel 
on his arrival in England from India is welcomed by his 
little niece Ethel : — 

' He took a little slim white hand and laid it down on his 
brown palm, where it looked all the whiter ; he cleared the 
grizzled moustachio from his mouth, and stooping down he 
kissed the little white hand with a great deal of grace and 
dignity. There was no point of resemblance, and yet a 
something in the girl's look, voice, and movements, which 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 29 

caused his heart to thrill, and an image out of the past to 
rise up and salute him. The eyes which had brightened his 
youth (and which he saw in his dreams and thoughts for 
faithful years afterwards as though they looked at him out 
of heaven) seemed to shine upon him after five-and-thirty 
years. He remembered such a fair bending neck and 
clustering hair, such a light foot and airy figure, such a slim 
hand lying in his own — and now parted from it with a gap 
of ten thousand long days between. . . . Parting is death, 
at least as far as life is concerned. A passion comes to 
an end ; it is carried off in a coffin, or weeping in a post- 
chaise ; it drops out of life one way or other, and the earth 
clods close over it, and we see it no more. But it has been 
part of our souls and it is eternal. Does a mother not love 
her dead infant ? a man his lost mistress '^. with the fond 
wife nestling at his side, — yes, with twenty children smiling 
round her knee. No doubt, as the old soldier held the girl's 
hand in his, the httle talisman led him back to Hades, and 
he saw Leonora.' 

The book has its love passages — in some cases sad 
and miserable. Chapters of pathetic interest abound, 
where the w^orld is exhibited at its old tricks of topsy- 
turvy — Lady Clara loving Jack Belsize and being be- 
loved madly in return, while her hand is sold to Sir 
Barnes Newcome, ' society,' forsooth, blessing the bar- 
gain : Clive married to Rosey Mackenzie, whom he 
loves in a way, though his real devotion belongs to his 
cousin, who is put into the matrimonial auction and 
knocked down to an idiotic member of the peerage. As 



30 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

for the marriages which ' have been arranged,' who has 
not heard uttered, as our satirist asks, 'the ancient 
words, " I promise to take thee," &c., knowing them to 
be untrue; and is there a bishop on the bench that has 
not Amen'd the humbug in his lawn sleeves, and called 
a blessing over the kneeling pair of perjurers ? ' Hypo- 
crisy and humbug are succeeded by disaster in the novel. 
The grand old Colonel is ruined by the failure of the 
celebrated Bundelcund Bank, but when there comes in 
his need a cheque from one whom he had helped in days 
gone by, the bankrupt Colonel only exclaims, ' I thank 
my God Almighty for this ! ' and passes on the cheque 
immediately to another sufferer. The story rapidly pro- 
gresses. The death of Colonel Newcome is told with a 
pathos almost unequalled, and dear old Grey Friars 
becomes once more the witness of a scene to be ever 
held in remembrance. After this sad incident the novel 
speedily ends, with the united happiness of the two chil- 
dren whom the Colonel had most dearly loved. It is 
one of the few books which w^e close with regret when we 
have finished them. Genial, generous, and noble in its 
sentiments, we seem almost to reach the mind of 
Thackeray while perusing it. It gives us full assurance 
that his mission was of far wider import than that of a 
mere scourger of society. It is evidently written by a 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 31 

man who loves the world, though he hates its follies. 
He has scorn for its dissimulation, indignation for its 
oppression, smiles for its happiness, and tears for its 
woes. 

In continuation of his previous novel ' Esmond,' 
Thackeray returned to the historical vein in ' The Vir- 
ginians,' which follows the fortunes of the Esmond family 
after its migration to America. It was one of his cha- 
racteristics that the creations of his art acquired so com- 
plete a reality that he could not part from them, and they 
continued, as it were, to live on, and reappeared in his 
later works long after the fiction which had given birth to 
them had come to a close. Thus his ' Virginians ' grew 
out of ' Esmond,' and it is one of the pleasantest of his 
works. The course of true love pursues a devious way, 
and the weaknesses of one character serve to set in bold 
relief the heroism of others. The fairer sex have no reason 
to complain of the treatment they receive at the hands 
of our author, and in this story two of their species 
are immortalised in a setting for which we must ever be 
grateful. But while we are mterested in much love we 
are also admonished by much morality, though the 
moralismg of Thackeray on all occasions is anything but 
offensive. He has the gift of so exhibiting foibles and 
idiosyncrasies that there is no need for him to lash himself 



32 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

into a furious state of indignation, as the manner of some 
is ; that calm, sneering smile is sufficiently effectual ; 
heavy, clumsy weapons or bludgeons may make much 
demonstration, but it is the light, piercing touch of the 
pointed steel which is the most dangerous. Thackeray 
manages to find the one vulnerable point in our armour ; 
he introduces the rapier of his sarcasm, and we are slain. 
There is no withstanding his weapon. Surely the world 
should be the better for the fearless work which this man 
accomplished ! Honestly has he besought it to discard 
its deceit and selfishness, and who knows but vast results 
have followed the teaching of the fife-long lesson ? Does 
he not ask us, brother man ! to be more true to ourselves, 
to our own nature ; to drop the cloak which we perpetu- 
ally wear when we step forth into the world ? He would 
have man walk abroad upright, strong in his own virtue, 
and not ashamed to meet his fellows, as though in the 
great game of life he was determined to revoke through 
every trick in order to seize upon the stakes. And is it 
so very inhuman to help a friend or a brother that it has 
become so uncommon? Are the heavens always to 
appear as brass when the cry for help is raised ? Harry 
Esmond Warrington ' in his distress asked help from his 
relations ; his aunt sent him a tract and her blessing ; 
his uncle had business out of town, and could not, of 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 33 

course, answer the poor boy's petition. . . . My Lord 
and Lady Skinflint, when they consult in their bedroom 
about giving their luckless nephew a helping hand, and 
detennine to refuse, and go do^vn to family prayers and 
meet their children and domestics, and discourse vir- 
tuously before them and then remain together and talk 
nose to nose — what can they think of one another ? and 
of the poor kinsman falling among thieves and groaning 
for help unheeded? How can they go on with those 
virtuous airs ? How can they dare look each other in 
the face ? ' Brave writer ! these are manly words, but 
the world in great part still practises the selfish principle. 
It takes a long time to make it understand that a reli- 
gious tract, though possibly very cheap, is not very filling 
to the hungry stomach, nor does it go far in clothing the 
shivering limbs. Cropping up here and there in his 
sparkling leaves, such are the lessons Thackeray would 
teach. In novels like ' The Virginians ' they are sub- 
ordinate to the more leading purposes of the story, but 
human nature has changed little since the period when 
its scenes were fixed. Graphic pictures of American 
scenery abound in its pages, and celebrated characters of 
the reign of George II. appear on the stage. The philo- 
sophy of the novel may not be profound, but it is always 
plain and unmistakable. If there be any failure per- 

D 



34 POETS AND NOVELISTS, 

ceptible, it is a failure possessed in common with the 
greatest writers and dramatists, who, in attempting to 
depict the men, the morals, and the manners of a pre- 
ceding age, have never been able entirely to get rid of 
their own. 

The remaining works of fiction produced subsequently 
to ' The Virginians ' are somewhat slight in their con- 
struction (with the exception of one to be named), but 
generally exhibit great power. The exception, as regards 
length and plot, is ' The Adventures of Philip,' a work 
worthy almost to take rank with any of those which are 
more widely known, on account of its extremely realistic 
pictures of life, and its depth of human interest. In the 
sketches of those ' who robbed Philip, those who helped 
him, and those who passed him by,' we come upon 
varieties of love, passion, and duplicity drawn with won- 
drous skill. The sad parts of the story are written with 
indelible ink, and all through that fine nervous sensibility 
which should distinguish the highest novelists is strikingly 
apparent. The same remark applies to the beautiful 
story of the ' Hoggarty Diamond.' Of the memoirs of 
that extraordinary youth Barry Lyndon, it is scarcely 
necessary to say more than that they are told with no 
diminution of vigour ; all the later short stories of 
Thackeray, in fact, are written in English noticeable for 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 35 

its simplicity and purity. The wine is not so tart, does 
not sparkle quite so much, but it is mellower, and there 
is greater body in it. What could more conclusively 
exhibit this than the story the author left unfinished, 
' Denis Duval ' ? Here we have the last lines he ever 
wrote — lines which triumphantly dispose of the taunt 
that Thackeray was writing himself out. Of few can it 
be said that their later works exhibit a strength and 
genius undimmed by time. Yet Thackeray was one of 
that rare minority. The period of decadence had not 
set in with him. He had only just reached the top 
of the hill, he had taken no steps on his descent. 
To his powers of perception, and his possession of the 
critical faculty in no small degree, ' The Roundabout 
Papers,' the inimitable Paris, Irish, and Eastern 
Sketches, and his imitations of contemporary authors, 
bear ample testimony; while 'The Snob Papers,' bur- 
lesques, and ballads, overflow with comic humour. 
As regards the authorship of ballads alone, we have 
no writer of ve7's de societe at the present time who 
could be put into competition with him. ' Please- 
man X.' is famous ; yet even Praed or Father Prout 
can show nothing better than ' Peg of Limavaddy,' 
' At the Church Gate,' and ' Little Billee.' Novel, 
sketch, ballad, or essay, Thackeray has summed up in 



36 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



great part the lessons he would inculcate in these well« 
known verses : — 

' O, Vanity of Vanities ! 

How wayward the decrees of Fate are ; 
How very weak the veiy wise, 
How very small the very great are ! 

* Though thrice a thousand years are past, 

Since David's son the sad and splendid, 
The weary King Ecclesiast, 

Upon his awful tablets penned it, — 

* Methinks the text is never stale, 

And life is every day renewing 
Fresh comments on the old, old tale. 
Of Folly, Fortune, Glory, Ruin.' 

In noticing the various works of Thackeray thus 
briefly, we have purposely left the lectures on the Four 
Georges and the English Humourists till the close, as 
they belong to a new and entirely distinct class of effort. 
Probably this was the first occasion on which a wTiter 
assumed the lecturer and the critic in one. Those who 
were privileged to hear the author deliver his lectures in 
person will remember how he took the town by storm, 
and the same enthusiasm was manifested when Thackeray 
went to Edinburgh and visited the principal towns in 
England and America, where the whole of the intellectual 
classes of the population flocked to hear him. To get 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 2>7 

the opinions of a famous literary man on his distinguished 
predecessors dehvered viva voce was naturally attractive, 
and the imposing form of Titmarsh with his snowy hair 
has not yet passed out of the recollection of his auditors. 
We heard him on the age in which he was thoroughly at 
home. He had made that period in a manner his own 
by an intimate knowledge of all its leading spirits, and he 
appeared to strike a chord of self-satisfaction when he 
said, ' I knew familiarly a lady who had been asked in 
marriage by Horace Walpole, who had been patted on 
the head by George I.' This immediately takes him to 
the time of Johnson, Goldsmith, Steele, Pope, and Swift, 
and he is happy. He then goes on to talk pleasantly of 
the times and manners of the Four Georges, not sparing 
the gall of satire, however, when he deems it necessary 
to mix it with his ink. As a citizen of the time he thus 
describes the advent of the First George, and the facts 
of history but too fully justify the sweeping condemna- 
tion : — 

' Here we are, all on our knees. Here is the Archbishop 
of Canterbury prostrating himself to the head of his church, 
with Kielmansegge and Schulenberg with their ruddled 
cheeks grinning behind the Defender of the Faith. Here 
is my Lord Duke of Marlborough kneeling, too, the greatest 
warrior of all times ; he who betrayed King William — be- 
trayed King James 1. — betrayed Queen Anne — betrayed 



38 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

England to the French, the Elector to the Pretender, the 
Pretender to the Elector ; there are my Lords Oxford and 
Bolingbroke, the latter of whom has just tripped up the heels 
of the former ; and if a month's more time had been allowed 
him^ would have had King James at Westminster.' 

But foolish as the foreign gentleman was, he was 
astute enough to see through loyalty of this description. 
The bargain with England was that she wanted a Pro- 
testant puppet, and as George was not unwilling, for a 
consideration, to become one, matters were arranged. 
Though not without his faults, George I. had, as 
Thackeray points out, the countervailing virtues of 
justice, courage, and moderation. In introducing his 
immediate successor, the essayist sketches a memorable 
scene. An eager messenger in jack-boots, who had 
ridden from London, forced his way into a bedroom in 
Richmond Lodge, where the master was taking a nap 
after dinner. With a strong German accent and many 
oaths, the man on the bed, starting up, asked who dared 
to disturb him ? ' I am Sir Robert Walpole,' said the 
messenger. The awakened sleeper hated Sir Robert. 
'■ I have the honour to announce to your Majesty, that 
your royal father, King George L, died at Osnaburg, on 
Saturday last, the loth instant.' ^ Dat is one big lief' 
roared out his Sacred Majesty King George IL, but that 
was how he came to be monarch nevertheless. The 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 39 

Second George was more wrongheaded than his father, 
and England was saved during many years of his reign 
by the strong will of that strange mixture of courage, 
dissoluteness, statesmanship, and meanness. Sir Robert 
Walpole, and by the good sense and tact of Queen 
Carohne. Brave the King undoubtedly was, but in and 
around his court there was the old sickly air of corruption, 
fed rather than suppressed by a sycophant clergy. The 
trenchant words of the great satirist are not a whit too 
strong in which to describe the godlessness and hypocrisy 
of the period. And when the sovereign died, some of 
the divines carried their cant behind the grave, and re- 
ferred to their master as one too good for earth. They 
had crawled in the dust before his mistresses for prefer- 
ment, and having got it, must of course pay for it some- 
how. Diving beneath the surface of society, Thackeray 
wisely says, ' It is to the middle class we must look for 
the safety of England ; the working educated men, away 
from Lord North's bribery in the senate ; the good 
clergy not corrupted into parasites by the hope of prefer- 
ment ; the tradesmen rising into manly opulence j the 
painters pursuing their gentle calling ; the men of letters 
in their quiet studies \ these are the men whom we love 
and like to read of in the last age.' With these classes 
pure and sound, kings and puppets may sport with im- 



40 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

punity ; the kingdom is safe ; it is when the middle 
classes are corrupt and worthless that the foundations of 
society begin to break up. Pleasant gossip of the good 
but obstinate King George, the third of his name, is 
vouchsafed to us, with glimpses of his pure court — would 
it had always remained so — within whose precincts many 
a battle was won over his opponents by the dogged 
monarch. Then we come to the period of his terrible 
malady, and in describing the closing scene of all, the 
essayist breaks out into a passage of touching eloquence, 
which we transcribe here as being in his most successful 
vein : — 

' What preacher need moralise on this story ; what words 
save the simplest are requisite to tell it ? It is too terrible 
for tears. The thought of such a misery smites me down in 
submission before the Ruler of kings and men, the Monarch 
Supreme over empires and republics, the inscrutable Dis- 
penser of hfe, death, happiness, victory. " O brothers ! " I 
said to those who heard me first in America — '' O, brothers ! 
speaking the same mother tongue — O comrades ! enemies 
no more, let us take a mournful hand together as we stand 
by this royal corpse, and call a truce to battle ! Low he 
lies to whom the proudest used to kneel once, and who was 
cast lower than the poorest j dead, whom millions prayed for 
in vain." Driven off the throne ; buffeted by rude hands ; 
with his children in revolt ; the darling of his old age killed 
before him untimely ; our Lear hangs over her breathless 
lips and cries : " Cordeha, Cordeha, stay a httle !" 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 41 

" Vex not his ghost — oh ! let him pass — he hates him 
That would upon the rack of this tough world 
Stretch him out longer ! " 

Hush ! strife and quarrel, over the solemn grave ! Sound, 
trumpets, a mournful march. Fall, dark curtain, upon his 
pageant, his pride, his grief, his awful tragedy/ 

The lectures on the English Humourists, a subject 
pecuHarly adapted to the bent of Thackeray, commence 
with Swift, the genius who had a life-hunt for a bishopric 
and missed it. The bitterness of a generation of man- 
kind seemed to be concentrated in that one spirit. We 
scarcely understand him now, or if we do, then genius is 
miserably weak and vulnerable m some points if strong as 
adamant in others. He did not succeed, and it was his 
constant habit, we are assured, to keep his birthday as a 
day of mourning. Yet there are some aspects in which 
we like to regard him. We admire his utter scorn at 
times, his contempt for the tinsel, and the power of his 
eagle eye to pierce to the heart of things. He could also 
crush pretence, at once and effectually. A bumptious 
young wit said to him in company, ' You must know, Mr. 
Dean, that I set up for a wit ! ' 'Do you so ? ' said the 
Dean. * Take my advice and sit down again.' Thackeray 
mistrusts the religion of Swift, and mentions as one of the 
strongest reasons for doing so, the fact of his recommend- 
ing the dissolu te author of ' The Beggar's Opera ' to turn 



42 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



clergyman, and look out for a seat on the bench. But 
this master of irony varied so in his moods, that it 
is impossible to know whether this advice was not simply 
the result of that intense chagrin which possessed him, 
rather than of a deliberate recklessness of the good. 
That Swift suffered, mentally, more than almost any man 
history takes note of may be accepted, but it was partly 
due to the workings of an ' evil spirit.' It is justly said 
of him that 'he goes through life, tearing, like a man 
possessed of a devil. Like Abudah in the Arabian story, 
he is always looking out for the Fury, and knows that 
the night will come and the inevitable hag with it. What 
a night, my God ! it was, what a lonely rage of long 
agony — what a vulture that tore the heart of that giant ! 
It is awful to think of the great sufferings of this great 
man. Through life he always seems alone, somehow. 
Goethe was so. I can't fancy Shakspeare otherwise. 
The giants must live apart. The kings can have no 
company. But this man suffered so ; and deserved so to 
suffer. One hardly reads anywhere of such a pain.' 
And this pain went through life — in darkness, rage, and 
misery he spent his days ; no light broke through the 
starless night. The end came, and terrible is the story, 
— the witty, the eloquent, the gifted, the godlike in in- 
tellect, the deviHsh in heart, Swift passed away in a state 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 43 

not unlike that against which he had prayed in a letter to 
Bolingbroke, when he said, ' It is time for me to have 
done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a 
better before I was called into the best, and not die here 
in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.' Excellent talk 
follows this sketch — gossip of Congreve and Addison, 
with wise critical remarks interspersed by the author, who 
may be said to have established a prescriptive right to 
the age of which he wrote. Somewhat too much, we are 
inclined to think, Thackeray made of Pope, though the 
executive ability of the young poet was of the most mar- 
vellous description. Poor Dick Steele, that bundle of 
failings and weaknesses, has a paper all to himself, and 
we rise from its perusal with our love for the kindly, 
miserable sinner intensified. It was surface wickedness 
with Steele entirely : his heart was tender, and his cha- 
racter simple as a child's. For the genius and character 
of Fielding Thackeray had of course the highest admira- 
tion. Very few lines need be read before it is apparent 
that the modern novelist had studied his predecessor 
minutely. He quotes Gibbon's famous saying about 
Fielding with intense relish. ' The successors of Charles V. 
may disdain their brethren (the Fieldings) of England : 
but the romance of " Tom Jones," that exquisite picture 
of humour and manners, will outlive the palace of the 



44 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Escurial, and the Imperial Eagle of Austria.' But here 
our pleasant reminiscences of the Enghsh humourists 
must end, and some observations of a general nature be 
made upon the genius of him who has bequeathed to us 
his thoughts and judgments on his illustrious prede- 
cessors. 

The first characteristic which strikes the reader of 
Thackeray is unquestionably his humour. It does not 
gleam forth as flashes of lightning, rare and vivid, but is 
more like the ever-bubbling fountain, the perennial 
spring. It is a kind of permeating force throughout all 
his works — works now lashed into sarcasm and anon dis 
solved in pathos. It is one of the great mistakes regarding 
this author that he is satirical and nothing else. No 
critic who thus represents him can have either studied 
his novels or caught the spirit and purpose of the man. 
He is one of the best of English humourists simply be- 
cause his nature is sensitive at all points. What Carlyle 
has said of Jean Paul may be said of him — ' In his smile 
itself a touching pathos may lie hidden, a pity too deep 
for tears. He is a man of feeling, in the noblest sense 
of that word; for he loves all living with the heart of a 
brother ; his soul rushes forth, in sympathy with gladness 
and sorrow, with goodness or grandeur, over all creation. 
Every gentle and generous affection, every thrill of 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 45 

mercy, every glow of nobleness, awakens in his bosom a 
response; nay, strikes his spirit into harmony.' It must 
ever be so. But when the first satirical papers of 
Thackeray were published the world had only seen one 
side of his humour. The 'Snob Papers' and burles- 
ques, and the memoirs of Mr. Yellowplush, gave place in 
due time to a richer vein in more important works. The 
sparkling Champagne was followed, as it were, by the 
deep rich Burgundy. As Dickens was his superior in 
the faculty of invention, so was the former eclipsed by 
the greater depth of Thackeray's penetration. Truth to 
life distinguishes nearly all the characters of Dickens, 
those at least which belong to the lower classes; but this 
truth is the obvious truth of caricature rather than of 
reality: Thackeray takes us below the surface ; we travel 
through the dark scenes of the human drama with him ; 
he makes his notes and comments without flattery and 
with astounding realism, and when we part company 
from his side we wish human nature were somewhat 
nobler than it is. But his wit does not preclude him 
from being fair and just. He is indeed scrupulously so, 
and to the erring kind and tender. It used to be said 
occasionally of his works as they appeared, ' Ah, there's 
the same old sneer ' — so ready is the world to follow the 
course in which its attention is directed. Speaking of 



46 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



the maligners of Society, he says, ' You who have ever 
Ustened to village bells, or have walked to church as 
children on sunny Sabbath mornings ; you who have 
ever seen the parson's wife tending the poor man's bed- 
side ; or the town clergyman threading the dirty stairs of 
noxious alleys upon his sacred business ; — do not raise a 
shout when one of these falls away, or yell with the mob 
that howls after him.' Surely these are noble words to 
come from one whose intellectual current was set in the 
direction of contempt! With all his keen sense of the 
ridiculous and his scathing powers of invective, there is 
no one instance where for the sake of the brilliancy of 
his satire he ever cast a slur upon truly philanthropic 
labour, or perilled his reputation for the worship of the 
pure and the good. If ever man's humour were useful 
to instruct as well as to delight, it is that of Michael 
Angelo Titmarsh. When he laughs we know he will do 
it fairly — his eye wanders round all, and neither friend 
nor foe, if vulnerable, can keep out the arrows of his wit. 
His position, as a humourist, is certainly that of the 
equal of most of the wits of whom he has written, and 
one scarcely inferior to even Swift or Sterne. 

A second quality that is observable in him is his 
fidehty. And to this we do not attach the restricted 
meaning that the persons of his novels are faithful to 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 47 



nature — though that they incontestably are — but the 
wide import of being true to the results of hfe as we see 
them daily. He does not allow the development of a 
story to destroy the unities of character, and in this 
respect he resembles the greatest of all writers. Take 
an example. At the close of ' The Newcomes/ instead 
of preserving alive the noble Colonel to witness the 
happiness of the family in its resuscitated fortunes, 
Thackeray causes him to die, and that in the humblest 
manner. With most novelists we could predict a very 
different ending, but one not so true as Thackeray has 
had the courage to adopt. Sorrow we may indulge that 
the death should thus occur, but we must acknowledge 
that it is more consonant with our daily experience than 
any other conclusion would have been, however pleasant 
as matter of fiction. The same thing is noticed in the 
character of Beatrix Esmond ; we are first interested in 
her ; then our faith is gradually shattered ; and, finally, 
we are thoroughly disappointed by the catastrophe. The 
result is contrary to that which we expected ; it is other 
than would have been given by most writers, but it is 
none the less true. Take the whole of his creations, let 
the test of fidelity be applied to each, and it will be found 
that the writers are very few indeed who have been so 
thoroughly able to disentangle themselves from the 



48 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



common method of adapting character to plot, or who 
have made their individuaUties so distinct, and kept 
them so to the end. To place him in comparison with 
other authors who are distinguished for their delineation 
of character as character— as witnessed at certain points 
or stages— is unfair both to him and to them. Conver- 
sations, with one, stamp individualities, and the test of 
their fidelity is the absence of contradiction in the out- 
ward forms of speech and action whenever the individuals 
are introduced : this was the Hfe-painting of Dickens, 
for instance. With Thackeray the case is different. He 
does not depend so much on the conversational or de- 
scriptive recognition of character. He gives us more of 
their mind or heart than of their person. He does not 
tell us what they look like, but what they are ; and 
through all his novels they answer to the bent and the 
natural instincts we have been led to associate with them. 
It is this elevated form of fidelity that we would insist 
upon as preeminently to be noticed in Thackeray : and 
were it on this ground alone we should not hesitate to 
place him in the very first rank of novelists. In this 
essential particular, in truth, he has no rival. Others 
may excel him in various arts of fiction, but \vith this 
passport, even his superiors in minor detail will accord 
to him a perfect equality, if not a superiority, in the 
manifestation of the cardinal principle of novel-writing. 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 49 

The subjectiveness of Thackeray is another quality 
which has greatly enhanced the value of his works. It 
is generally admitted that subjective writers have a more 
powerful influence over humanity than those of the 
class styled objective. It is natural, perhaps, that the 
external descriptions of circumstances or scenery should 
not move us nearly so much as the life-record of a 
breathing, suffering, rejoicing human being. Be his 
station what it may, w^e are interested in every individual 
of the species whose career is faithfully pictured. The 
author of ' Vanity Fair ' is one of the few men who have 
been able to endue their characters with being and 
motion. When there were few writers who had either 
the courage or the gifts to be natural, Thackeray gave a 
new impetus to the world of fiction. So eminently sub- 
jective are his works, that those of his friends who knew 
him well are able to trace in them the successive stages 
of his personal career, and to show in what manner the 
incidents of his own life operated upon his novels. 
There are but few occurrences in the whole series that 
were not drawn either from his individual history or the 
history of some one of his friends or acquaintances. 
This is, doubtless, one of the most influential causes of 
the reality of his stories. No stiff, formal record of 
events, dispassionately told, is to be witnessed. If the 

E 



50 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



reader reads at all, he must perforce become interested 
in his work. There probably never were novels Avritten 
in which there was so little exaggeration of colouring. 
His dear Harry Fielding has been his guide, but the 
author of ' Tom Jones ' has been almost outstripped by 
his pupil. The latter has been able to throw away more 
effectually the folds of drapery in which character has 
generally been presented to us. In his model he was 
happy, for, previous to Thackeray, Fielding was the most 
subjective writer in the annals of fiction. One can 
understand the charm which those writings exercised 
over his successor, and the desire which he felt to con- 
struct his novels after the fashion of which he had become 
so greatly enamoured. But the pupil has the greater 
claim to our regard in the fact that his work is such that 
not a line of it need be excised in public reading. He 
is Fielding purified. All the vivacity and the life-giving 
strokes which belonged to the pencil of the earlier master 
are reproduced in the younger, and the interest is also 
preserved intact. But with the later age has come the 
purer language, and Thackeray may be said to stand in 
precisely the same relation to the nineteenth century as 
Fielding stood to the eighteenth. The absence of exag- 
geration in Thackeray's drawing of character is very 
remarkable. Notwithstanding the multiplicity of his 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 51 

personages, there are not two which in any sense 
resemble each other. The faculty is very rare of being 
able to transfer the lineaments of commonplace people 
in such a manner as that others will care to study them. 
Yet this is the result which Thackeray achieves, and 
without labour. Nothing transcendental, or that which 
is beyond human nature, is thrown in as a means of 
bribing the reader into closer acquaintanceship. As men 
passed Thackeray he observed them; as they interested 
him he drew them; but in doing so he felt that to add 
to the original would destroy the identity, and the conse- 
quence of his consummate art is that throughout the 
whole of his varied picture-gallery there is no portrait 
which bears the impress of falsity or distortion. To say 
the truth, and to describe what he saw before him, was 
always the novelist's own boast. There could be no 
nobler ambition for any ™ter, but there are few who 
have attained the perfect height of the standard. 

Leading out of his subjectiveness, or rather being a 
broader and grander development of it, we come to the 
fourth great characteristic of Thackeray — his humanity. 
That is the crown and glory of his work. And yet this 
man, who was sensitive almost beyond parallel, was 
charged with having no heart ! Shallow critics, who gave 



52 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

a surface-reading to 'Vanity Fair,' imagined they had 
gauged the author, and in an off-hand manner described 
him as a man of no feeUng — the cold, simple cynic. It 
will be remembered that the same charge of having no 
heart was made against Macaulay; but its baselessness 
was discovered on his death, when it became known that 
' the heartless ' one had for years pursued a career of 
almost unexampled benevolence. So superficial are the 
judgments of the world ! Against Thackeray the charge 
was doubly cruel; he was one of those men who are 
naturally full of sensibility to a degree. Men who 
understood him best knew that it cost him an effort to 
subdue that part of his nature which hastened to sympa- 
thise with others. Selfishness was as foreign to him as 
insincerity. The man was true as the light of heaven to 
the generous instincts of his nature. To veil at times 
this side of his character was essential in order to give 
play to that satire which kills. If his mission was to 
exalt the good and the pure, it v/as also as decidedly his 
mission to abase the false. To do this he must neces- 
sarily appear severe. But who that reads him well can 
fail to perceive that the eye accustomed to blaze with 
scorn could also moisten with sympathy and affection ? 
What man without heart could have written such passages 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 53 

as that episode in the ' Hoggarty Diamond ' ? Titmarsh 

is describing his journey to the Fleet Prison, accompanied 

by his wife : — 

' There was a crowd of idlers round the door as I passed 
out of it, and had I been alone I should have been ashamed 
of seeing them ; but, as it was, I was only thinking of my 
dear, dear wife, who was leaning trustfully on my arm, and 
smiling like heaven into my face — ay, and took heaven too 
into the Fleet Prison with me — or an angel out of heaven. 
Ah ! I had loved her before, and happy it is to love when 
one is hopeful and young in the midst of smiles and sun- 
shine ; but be Zif^zhappy, and then see what it is to be loved 
by a good woman ! I declare before heaven, that of all the 
joys and happy moments it has given me, that was the 
crowning one — that little ride, with my wife's cheek on my 
shoulder, down Holborn to the prison ! Do you think I 
cared for the baihff that sat opposite? No, by the Lord ! 
I kissed her and hugged her — yes, and cried with her like- 
wise. But before our ride was over her eyes dried up, and 
she stepped blushing and happy out of the coach at the 
prison-door, as if she were a princess going to the Queen's 
drawing-room.' 

Or is there to be found in all fiction a scene more 
pathetic than the one describing the death of Colonel 
Newcome? To have written that alone would have 
deservedly made any man great. Though it is doubt- 
less familiar to every reader, it will be impossible to 
illustrate fully the human tenderness of the author with- 



54 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

out quoting some portion of it here. The scene is at 
Grey Friars: — 

' Ethel came in with a scared face to our pale group. " He 
is calhng for you again, dear lady," she said, going up to 
Madame de Florae, who was still kneeling ; " and just now 
he said he wanted Pendennis to take care of his boy. He 
will not know you." She hid her tears as she spoke. She 
went into the room where Clive was at the bed's foot ; the 
old man within it talked on rapidly for a while ; then again 
he would sigh and be still ; once more I heard him say 
hurriedly : " Take care of him when I am in India ;" and 
then with a heart-rending voice he called out, " Leonore, 
L^onore ! " She was kneeling by his side now. The 
patient's voice sank into faint murmurs ; only a moan now 
and then announced that he was not asleep. At the usual 
evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas 
Newcombe's hands outside the bed feebly beat time. And 
just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over 
his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, 
" Adsum ! " and fell back. It was the word we used at school 
when names were called ; and lo ! he, whose heart was as 
that of a little child, had answered to his name and stood in 
the presence of The Master.' 

The principal defect alleged against Thackeray is 
that he is a mannerist. But when it is considered that 
the same charge could be laid against every writer in the 
roll of literature with the exception of the few imperial 
intellects of the universe, it must be conceded that the 
charge is of little moment. All men, save the Homers, 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 55 

Shakspeares, and Goethes of the world, are mannerists. 
There is not a writer of eminence Hving at the present 
day who is not a mannerist. Tennyson, Browning, and 
Carlyle are all mannerists. It is impossible to quarrel 
with that which sets the stamp of individuality and origi- 
nality on the productions of the intellect. 

To assign Thackeray's ultimate position in literature 
is a difficult task, for nothing is less certain than the per- 
manence of literary attractiveness and fame ; but we 
think that his works will be read and as keenly enjoyed 
after the lapse of a century as they are now. Fielding 
has survived longer than that period, and weightier 
reasons for immortality than could be advanced in his 
case might be advanced in favour of Thackeray. If his 
works ceased to be read as pictures of society and de- 
lineations of character, they would still retain no in- 
glorious place in English literature from the singular 
purity and beauty of their style. It is style even more 
than matter which embalms a literary reputation. To 
the faithfulness with v/hich he spake the English tongue 
we believe future generations will testify. Whatsoever 
was good, honestj and true found in him a defender; 
w^hatsoever was base, unmanly, or false shrank abashed 
in his presence. A man with less pretence, less assump- 
tion, less sham never existed: he revolted from appear- 



56 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



ing that which he was not. His works were the reflex of 
the man, and Hke a shaft of Hght, which, while it pierces 
into the deepest recesses of dissimulation and vice, 
smiles benignantly upon those aspirations and feelings 
which are the noblest glory of humanity. 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 



[corn HILL magazine] 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BRO WNING. 

What are the essential attributes of the Poet's art which 
cause him to be adorned with the noblest crown it is in the 
power of humanity to confer ? From the period when ' the 
blind old man of Scio's rocky isle ' thundered that music 
which was to reverberate through all time, along the 
swift revolving centuries, even to our own somewhat 
prosaic day, we witness an unbroken succession of kings 
of song, whose thrones have been more permanent than 
those of the Pharaohs and the Caesars. What allegiance 
do we bear, or what sworn fealty have we kept, truer 
than that which we own towards those who have touched 
into activity the secret springs of our sensibility ? All 
the grandeurs of birth, and dignities which have blos- 
somed at the touch of monarchs, fail to move our admi- 
ration as compared with the simple majesty of genius, 
which has its rise in higher soi^ and whose fruition is not 
dependent upon the smile of human potentates. One 
has somewhat bitterly said of good princes, that ail their 
names might be graven within the gem of one ring. The 



6o POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



same cannot be said of the royal race of poets. Theirs 
is not the accidental title to reverence which, with the 
majority of princes, ceases with the yielding up of life. 
There is nothing perishable with the poet but that clay 
which has hemmed him in, and restricted the flights of 
his burning and ever-aspiring spirit. His soul is im- 
mortal in his verse. And he possesses the gift beyond 
all others of transferring his mind and his heart into his 
effusions. But a momentary consideration will demon- 
strate the fact that the poet must, of necessity, have the 
largest fellowship with humanity. He it is who converses 
with our veritable selves, and not with our shadows ; 
other men affect us at a point somewhere on the surfece 
— by varied means, but all failing to reach the chord that 
has its root in the heart's blood, and which vibrates 
whenever the true singer touches his fellow-man. ^Vhat 
matters it whether the poet begs his bread through 
opulent cities, as the godlike Homer is affirmed to have 
done, or wields a powerful sceptre like that of David, 
' the sweet singer of Israel ' ? The ultimate glory of all 
is the same, the difference one of degree only. Posterity 
gives the crown which cannot wither. Again, the poet 
appears before mankind not only as the most indepen- 
dent teacher, but the most sympathetic — apparently a 
contradiction in terms. While the least biassed of all 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 61 

teachers who instruct us, he has also the extraordinary 
power of reaching to the profoundest depths of our 
nature. We should regard the matter with comparative 
unconcern if w^e witnessed the world moved from its orbit 
beneath the lever of an Archimedes, provided our own 
gravity were preserved ; the astounding achievement 
would excite little or no emotion in us ; but when the 
poet gives birth to a new idea, or when he revivifies old 
ones by the plastic and life-giving touch of his genius, 
the world is ready with something better than its applause 
— it reverences and it loves. It is not our intention here 
to magnify the Poet's office ; the unanimous verdict of 
men, from the remotest ages, has raised him to the 
highest pinnacle of fame, and in the great Valhalla of the 
universe there are no dead so illustrious as those in 
whom was perfected the divine melody of song. The 
poet is enthroned of man by virtue of a nobility which 
comes from God. His mission is to show us that to feel 
nobly is to be great, and to insist, with a lofty eloquence 
and in an impassioned strain, upon the importance and 
sacred character of truth, beauty, and virtue. We are 
not of those who restrict the scope of poetry, and con- 
sider it chiefly as a refinement and a delight ; that is to 
do wrong to its majestic spirit, w^hose wings touch the 
earth, but whose glorious eyes look into Heaven. 



62 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

All true poets themselves have felt that their marvel- 
lous gift meant infinitely more than the mere utterance 
of melodious numbers. The outer music is but the 
shadow of that deeper soul-music which originated with 
the apprehension of a new truth, or a new phase of 
beauty. He is not a poet who does not possess this 
strange insight, which distinctly marks off the real singer 
from that adventitious writer who, in a happy moment, 
may throw off verses which a simply cursory examination 
might induce men to accept as the genuine presentment 
of poetry. It was the neglect to take due account of 
this matter which led the supporters of Pope to assume a 
much higher ground in the famous controversy upon his 
merits than his claims warranted. Soul, and not criticism, 
is desiderated in poetry. The foibles of humanity are 
excellent things as marks for the shafts of novelists and 
satirists ; but the man who would assure us of his divine 
mission in poetry takes a nobler range than that. He is 
for ever in search of, and thirsting for, the beauty of the 
universe, that he may interpret it to others. He brings 
it to us from the humblest places and in the humblest 
guises ; but his contact, while placing it before our 
vision, has glorified it, and shown that within it of whose 
existence we had never dreamed. Has Pope, or any 
other man who taught us how to think in measured 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 63 



cadence, and delighted us with rhyming intellectuahsm 
— ever got beyond didactic assertions, and seized that 
fire which the real Prometheus of song invariably gains ? 
The poet has impulses, gigantic and irresistible ; he has 
also love, ever operative and inextinguishable. His 
rhyme is an accident ; his poetry is eternal. He finds 
his divine manna everywhere ; he is the high-priest of 
nature and of God. He sings not so much because it is 
pleasant, or to direct attention to his own great and 
wondrous ability, but because he must. While he lives, 
he cannot avoid it. And the strange faculty of diving 
into the mystery of things extends to everything he sees 
around him. From no path where intuition can be of 
avail is he shut out. In this respect poets might well 
appropriate to themselves those lines of delightful old 
George Herbert, who himself possessed some share of 
the mystic gift : — 

' For us the winds do blow, 
The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow; 

Nothing we see, but means our good, 

As our delight, or as our treasure ; 
The whole is either our cupboard of food, 

Or cabinet of pleasure.' 

Now the main charge against the poetry of the Vic- 
torian age, if we read it rightly, is this— that however 



64 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

admirable much of it may be as regards finish, it is in- 
significant in conception. Emerson, who is unable to 
find any poetic genius in his own country to satisfy him, 
thus asks despairingly of England — ' Shall I find my 
heavenly bread in the reigning poets ? Where is great 
design in modern English poetry? The English have 
lost sight of the fact that poetry exists to speak the 
spiritual law, and that no wealth of description or of 
fancy is yet essentially new, and out of the limits of 
prose, until this conviction is reached. Therefore the 
grave old poets, like the Greek artists, heeded their 
designs, and less considered the finish. It was their 
office to lead to the divine sources, out of which all this, 
and much more, readily springs ; and if this religion is 
in the poetry, it raises us to some purpose, and we can 
well afford some staidness, or hardness, or want of 
popular tune in the verses.' To say that the standard 
aimed at by this language is high, is a very inadequate 
description of it. Emerson's ideal is evidently one that 
is only reached every five hundred years. He would, 
appear to look for a Homer or an ^schylus with every 
generation of humanity ; forgetting that we are not gods, 
but only summed up into one with the fulness of time — 
as Shakspeare succeeds to the great ancients after the 
lapse of centuries of mediocrity. But is it true that the 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 65 

age has exhibited no design in poetry ? Did not Words- 
worth exhibit any, in spite of his stuttering articulation — 
a helplessness probably partly induced by his excess of 
spiritual vision ? Are Browning's grappHngs with mag- 
nificent subjects to be accounted altogether as failures ? 
As for Tennyson, he has, it must be owned, never failed 
in anything, for he has been careful not to overweight 
himself^ He is the perfect singer of the time. Yet 
he would fall under the reproach of Emerson — if it be 
a reproach — that he gives the age what it asks for, 
instead of striving after loftier ideas. Sympathising, how- 
ever, to a certain extent with the position assumed by 
the distinguished American essayist, we must admit that 
what we want is not so much the laborious poet as the 
emotional. Tennyson is undoubtedly both, but by no 
means in the same degree. His melody is stately and 
rich, but not overwhelming. He delights by grace, but 
never swells by passion, v The light of consummate art 
gleams forth from all he does, but his moments of high 
exaltation of soul are very rare. 

The contrary is the case with regard to the poet 

^ To this statement some critics, judging from their pubHshed 
opinions, might object, alleging * Queen Mary ' as an instance to 
the contrary ; but while that drama is not so satisfactory as much 
of Mr, Tennyson's previous work in the poetical sense, it is surely 
so in the dramatic. 



66 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

whose works we propose to discuss. She, at any rate, 
has demonstrated what emotional poetry really means, 
in contradistinction to the poetry of simple art ; and it 
cannot be said, either, that she has altogether come short 
in the matter of design — the design which stamps the 
greatest poets. Sensibility and intuition, those endow- 
ments of supereminent importance to individuals whose 
greatness is to grow in proportion to their understanding 
and interpretation of human life, were in her united in a 
degree seldom witnessed. Her history, sparse as it is in 
facts as yet given to the world, is one of intense interest. 
It is well known how that existence with her was almost 
one long round of continuous suffering. Her retired life 
sent her more closely to the companionship of the dead, 
though she had naturally an eager and insatiable thirst 
after knowledge. Her own sufferings could never daunt 
her in the pursuit of learning, and accordingly we find 
that as a scholar she was distinguished for the ripest 
erudition. Her account of the Greek Christian poets 
will serve to show in what direction a large portion of her 
studies lay ; and it is in this work, we imagine, that we 
discern what was her own ideal of the true nineteenth 
century poet. ' We want the touch of Christ's hand 
upon our literature,' she says, ' as it touched other dead 
things ; we want the sense of the saturation of Christ's 
blood upon the souls of our poets, that it may cry through 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 67 

them in answer to the ceaseless wail of the Sphinx of our 
humanity, expounding agony into renovation. Something 
of this has been perceived in art when its glory was at 
the fullest. Something of a yearning after this may be 
seen among the Greek Christian poets, something which 
would have been much with a stronger faculty,' This 
idea recurs again and again in different forms through her 
works. She yearns for poetry to be sanctified, to be 
made holy. This is how it was with the grand old 
Greeks, and how it should be now. It is because poetry 
is losing its sense of its intimate relations to God that it 
is in danger of dying out. And how is the sacredness of 
poetry to be truly apprehended ? ^y the method which 
Mrs. Browning adopted, of looking boldly into the 
human heart, and reading it fearlessly and trustfully. 
' Foole, saide my muse to mee, looke in thine hearte, 
and write.' And poetry thus produced is that which 
preserves an everlasting freshness and fragrance. The 
human heart first, and Nature afterwards, were the 
teachers at whose feet our poet learned the deep lessons 
she subsequently transmitted to her species. By these 
were fostered in her a tenderness which breathes through 
all her writings, and whose spirit is mirrored therein as 
the blue sky mirrors itself upon the bosom of the deep. 
To her, also, it may be said that poetry brought ' its 



68 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

own exceeding great reward.' In the company of the 
deep-browed poets, the monarchs of all the ages, she 
found consolation as well as intellectual life. With the 
fellowship of yEschylus, and Pindar, and Plato, and 
Sophocles, and Euripides, of the olden world, and 
Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakspeare, of the modern, the 
burden of existence, that would otherwise have been in- 
supportable, became comparatively light with her. When 
but a girl she was able to read in the original some of the 
greatest masterpieces of antiquity ; and indeed almost 
her first work w^as an excellent translation of the ' Prome- 
theus ' of her great favourite amongst the poets. Her in- 
troduction to and intimate acquaintance wdth Greek 
literature was in a large measure due to the influence of 
her well-appreciated and cherished tutor, Boyd, the blind 
author of a w^ork upon the Greek Fathers, to whom she 
addresses some of the best of her sonnets. But though 
the Greek was the language which afforded her the most 
delight, her acquaintance was not confined to this, her 
knowledge of the Hebrew being also most intimate, 
whilst the Bible in that language was amongst her most 
continuous studies. Little would men suspect in meeting 
her for the first time that within that slight and spiritual 
frame burned so much of the celestial fire. It w^as, 
perhaps, in consequence of the chance introduction of 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 69 

some literary question, that it was discovered how much 
learning existed beneath so unpretending an exterior. 
She was like those branches which hang nearest the 
ground because of the prodigious crop of luscious fruit 
which is not always at first apparent to the eye. The 
love of knowledge, however, deep and lasting though it 
remained, never subdued or modified in her that great 
gift of the poet, a burning earnestness or enthusiasm. 
At the end, as at the beginning of life, the flame shone 
brightly. It was no flickering, artificial light, kept alive 
because the poet must simulate an earnestness that is 
not possessed; but it left an impress and a character 
upon her work which could not be mistaken. Her song 
resembled that which fable has associated with the name 
of Sappho — a living voice, eloquent with passion. Some- 
thing of her own intensity of feeling breathes in the lines 
when she speaks of 

' Electric Pindar, quick as fear, 
With race-dust on his cheeks, and clear 
Slant startled eyes that seem to hear 

The chariot rounding the last goal. 
To hurtle past it in his soul. 
And Sappho, with that gloriole 

Of ebon hair on calmed brows — 
O poet-woman ! none foregoes 
The leap, attaining the repose.' 



70 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Had song been less to her than indissolubly bound up 
with her hfe, one thinks she must have wavered in her 
devotion to it. But in truth her appetite grew by what 
it fed on, and the weakness of the body only led to a 
further development of soul. We like to think of her as 
accepted amongst the gods for her power over the divine 
art, and yet dear in her human relations for the exercise 
of a tenderness and a sympathy associated with the sex 
which make home a second paradise. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born in London, in 
the year 1809, and was the daughter of Mr. Ban-ett, an 
English country gentleman. At a very early age she 
had written much that was worthy of living, though it 
was kept from ail eyes save those of her father, whom 
she mentions in the first collected edition of her poems 
as ' my public and my critic' Miss Mitford has de- 
scribed her as a ' slight, delicate figure, with a shower of 
dark curls falling on each side of a most expressive face, 
large tender eyes, richly fringed by dark eyelashes, and 
a smile like a sunbeam.' She possessed a grace and 
deUcacy which almost defied representation. With so 
perfect a mental and spiritual organisation it was not 
given to her to be equally blessed in the physical. 
Always frail, it was her misfortune further to endanger 
her existence in 1837 by the bursting of a blood-vessel 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 71 

on the lungs. The extremest care preserved her hfe, 
though the incident was succeeded by a long period of 
weakness and suffering. Two years afterwards, before 
she had quite recovered, she was again assailed by mis- 
fortune, experiencing the keenest anguish on witnessing 
the death of her favourite brother, who was drowned at 
Torquay. A long period of danger followed this cata- 
strophe, and when she was at length able to be removed 
to her father's house, it was only to become an invalid, 
with the prospect of a life couch-ridden to its close. 
For seven long years this period of seclusion lasted; but 
during that time Miss Barrett devoured all the books 
she could bring within her reach, and cultivated the art 
which was afterwards to bring her immortality. In 1846, 
that is, when she was in her thirty-seventh year, came the 
principal event of her life — viz., her marriage with Mr. 
Browning. He bore her away to Italy, where softer 
skies brought back that health which had so long for- 
saken her in her native land. The union was most 
felicitous, and the influence upon Mrs. Browning's genius 
must have been great. On this influence, however, we 
cannot now enlarge, for the husband of the author of 
' Aurora Leigh ' still lives. Mrs. Browning died in Flo- 
rence in t86i, after testifying, in some of the noblest 
strains ever penned, her extraordinary devotion to the 
land of her adoption. 



72 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

One beneficial result of the comparative seclusion of 
Mrs. Browning's life was the habit of introspection which 
it induced, and which, fortunately for posterity, led to 
the production of some of the finest subjective poetry 
extant. We can understand to some extent her admira- 
tion for Wordsworth, after noticing the tenor of her own 
existence, which ran in somewhat similar grooves. 
Where, but for the seclusion of her life, would have been 
that wealth of ancient lore which, while not destroying 
the freshness of her poetry, has added to it a classic grace 
and a finish most admirable and remarkable ? The excel- 
lent balancing of her faculties had a happy efi'ect on 
her work, which is always good in conception, however 
defective it may occasionally be in expression. Her in- 
tellect was keen and comprehensive, not deficient even 
in masculinity ; and it was only in her theories — witness, 
for instance, references to social questions in her greatest 
poem — that she occasionally failed to exhibit that solidity 
of judgment, or practicality of judgment rather, which is 
generally associated with the opposite sex. As a poet 
she undoubtedly looked at men and things from the 
intensely personal view, in the sense, we mean, of in- 
dividuality. Instead of taking a broad sweep as Dante — 
whom we conceive as being merged in the mighty con- 
ceptions of his spirit— she had rather that other gift of 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 73 

the poet, of making herself, the individual, apparent in 
all her writings. It is this quality which adds so greatly 
to the force of her lyrical effusions — indeed, without this 
quality no poet had better attempt the writing of lyrics. 
So far as regards this form of poetry, we understand its 
force and value to be that it is an appeal from one indivi- 
dual mind to another; and the most successful lyrics 
have been those which have excited in us a particular, 
and not a general, interest. A momentary reflection 
upon the lyrics of Burns and Beranger will attest the 
truth of this assertion. It was a portion of Mrs. Brown- 
ing's strength — and by no means an unimportant one — 
that she was able to achieve this result. Who will not 
continually feel indebted to her for many of her shorter 
poems, which have revealed so much of the human heart 
in them, and awakened impulses and sensations which 
have delighted and cheered the spirit? That w^as a 
happy observation passed upon her by one critic, who 
described her as Shakspeare's daughter. The same large- 
heartedness which pertained to the great dramatist is 
shown by the later poet. The benevolent eye looks out 
on men and nature with the same imperishable love. If 
the world has at any time possessed its ideal poets, she 
is worthy to be counted one of them. 

From her earliest years, as will, indeed, have been 



74 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

discovered already, Mrs. Browning appears to have had 
the passion for books — a passion which is referred to 
more than once in ' Aurora Leigh ' — and her studious 
habits, as well as that of writing, were encouraged by her 
father. Her early years are a reproach to any who, with 
stronger health and equal opportunities, take no heed to 
the storing and assimilation of knowledge. In all that 
we read of her subsequent works, the value of those early 
habits of insatiable study is apparent. Knowledge has 
made the full mind, and the richness of the stores is not 
without effect upon her original compositions. How 
must her fragile frame have thrilled when, in the course 
of her reading, as she says — 

Because the time was ripe, 
I chanced upon the poets. 

Doubtless, the slumbering possibilities in her nature were 
touched by this, and it must have been with wonder that 
the lights of the great bards first flashed across her vision : 
something, it would have appeared to her, of the nature 
of coming into a priceless inheritance. And the time 
arrived when all that she had acquired became of real 
moment to her. Let those who would despise erudition 
in a poet place Mrs. Bro^\^ling beside other female poets, 
and see how they lose by comparison — not only in that 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 75 

original power in which she was undoubtedly stronger. 
The poet cannot gain one fact too many; the poorest 
and commonest coinage which he receives from other 
mints may be transmuted into the purest gold in his 
own. The best minds have recognised this, and have 
laboured diligently after the perfection of knowledge, 
feeling that none are so gifted, even the gods, but that 
they may learn somewhat from men. 

To attempt to pass in review all that Elizabeth 
Barrett Browning has left as her legacy for future ages is 
not our intention. We purpose, however, to examine 
some of her works individually before offering any criti- 
cisms of a general character upon her genius. ' A Drama 
of Exile,' which was a comparatively early production, is 
acknowledged to possess great sublimity in its ideas, 
though the conception as a whole is asserted to be a 
failure. For ourselves we were struck with the poetic 
wealth which it displays, and failure as applied to it must 
be taken in the comparative form. There are those 
whom the majestic Milton has not satisfied by his chef- 
dmivre ; but the most fastidious will admit that if he has 
not touched the highest heavens he has come very near 
them. Of course, it is not pretended for a moment that 
the ' Drama of Exile ' stands forth as magnificent a con- 
ception as ' Paradise Lost,' which Mrs. Browning's poem 



l(y POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

compels us to bring to memory, being upon the same 
subject ; neither can it be said to be perfectly original, 
coming after that epic : but in the later poem we find 
much in point of sustained language which reminds us of 
Milton's work. Milton's feet were more firmly set, and 
he has the stately march of a conqueror. Mrs. Browning 
can only in this work show her possibilities, not her 
ultimate perfection. This is an excellent touch, due, 
probably, partly to the fact that it was written by a 
woman; Gabriel, addressing Lucifer, says : — 

' If thou hadst gazed upon the face of God 
This morning for a moment, thou hadst known 
That only pity fitly can chastise : 
Hate but avenges.' 

These lines, put into the mouth of Adam, are also ex- 
quisite : — 

' The Highest being the Holy and the Glad, 
Whoever rises must approach delight 
And sanctity in the act.' 

But for a passage of unfaltering eloquence, and one 
instinct with true poetic fire, take the address of Adam 
to Eve after the twain have left Paradise. To demon- 
strate Mrs. Browning's power over blank verse, we cannot 
refrain from citing a portion of it : — 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. jj 

' Raise the majesties 
Of thy disconsolate brows, O well-beloved, 
And front with level eyelids the To come, 
And all the dark o' the world ! 

Thy love 
Shall chant itself its own beatitudes 
After its own life-working. A child's kiss. 
Set on thy sighing lips, shall make thee glad ; 
A poor man served by thee, shall make thee rich ; 
A sick man helped by thee, shall make thee strong ; 
Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense 
Of service which thou renderest. Such a crown 
I set upon thy head, — Christ witnessing 
With looks of prompting love — to keep thee clear 
Of all reproach against the sin foregone. 
From all the generations which succeed. 
Thy hand, which plucked the apple, I clasp close. 
Thy lips, which spake wrong counsel, I kiss close, 
I bless thee in the name of Paradise, 
And by the memory of Edenic joys 
Forfeit and lost, — by that last cypress tree 
Green at the gate, which thrilled as we came out, — 
And by the blessed nightingale which threw 
Its melancholy music after us, — 
And by the flowers, whose spirits full of smells, 
Did follow softly, plucking us behind 
Back to the gradual banks and vernal bowers 
And fourfold river-courses — By all these, 
I bless thee to the contraries of these, 
I bless thee to the desert and the thorns. 
To the elemental change and turbulence, 



78 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

And to the roar of the estranged beasts, 
And to the solemn dignities of grief, — 
To each one of these ends,— and to their End 
Of Death and the Hereafter.' 

It will be apparent that for one who had not yet 
attained the full maturity cf her powers to vrrite like this 
there must have been a great future in store. Whatever 
deductions might have to be made as regards the want 
of stupendousness in her conceptions, there was still 
sufficient breadth in her earlier work to prove that there 
were scarcely any heights to which she might not subse- 
quently attain. In the chorus of Eden spirits which 
comes into the ' Drama of Exile ' there is an abundance 
of lyrical music and power, given in metres which have 
since been most successfully adopted by other poets. 
In another poem, ' The Seraphim,' we observe the 
same noble moral glow which pervaded the drama to 
which we have just alluded. The time of the poem is 
that of the Crucifixion, and the sublime tragedy is 
handled with a delicacy and at the same time a force as 
nearly befitting so lofty a subject as we can well imagine. 
The deep religious spirit which pervaded Mrs. Browning 
led her frequently to the choice of topics in some way 
connected with the great verities of the Christian religion, 
in which she had a profound and intense belief, as will 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 79 

have been gathered, not only from repute, but from the 
attitude assumed in her works, by anyone who has made 
acquaintance with them. The faults which are princi- 
pally to be noted in her earliest poems are those related 
to art, a knowledge of which rarely comes at the outset 
to the most precocious. Before art can be exhibited, 
there must not only be capacity, but work accomplished 
— work compared with previous work, and each stage 
showing an advance upon that which went before. Al- 
though Mrs. Browning was never at any period of her 
career as distinguished for finish as she was for other and 
more important qualities, there is yet a considerable 
difference in this respect between her first effusions and 
her later lyrics. Her strength and pathos, however, 
generally overwhelm all other considerations in the 
reader's mind, whose attention is seized and retained by 
personal influence. It is the poet who does not throw 
himself entirely into his creations who is mostly eminent 
for finish. The value of the diamond to him consists in 
the way in which it is set, and he would prefer a stone 
of inferior water if it exhibited excess of polish to one 
much more massive if some touches of the rough still 
adhered to it. Yet, we are by no means contending that 
great poets are not also great in art. We are speaking 
only of finish, which is but a portion of art, and that not 



8o POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

the most important. In art are combined the larger 
quaUties of fitness, proportion, and truth, which are the 
masters of finish the world over. In all these three 
points Mrs. Browning was the successful artist ; and he 
who objected to her because he discovered here and 
there a false rhyme or a defective line, would have lost 
sight of the towering mountain ahead in stumbling over 
a mole-hill. Having said thus much, let us at the same 
time frankly admit that the sense of adequateness is not 
strongly perceived in the lengthy poems to which we 
have adverted. We discover it in the highest degree in 
' Paradise Lost,' and ought, of course, to find it in all 
work which is the matured result of a grand imagination 
— work that has attained solidity by frequent communing 
with and lifelong study of the bases on which it was 
grounded. So, had these poems of Mrs. Browning's 
been written at a later stage the beneficial result would 
have been apparent, in this one point at any rate upon 
which we are insisting. The unevenness in her execution 
would also have been considerably diminished, a matter 
of no small importance in conceptions of that nature. 
But take the poem and the drama as they stand, with all 
their faults, and we repeat there is still room for a 
feeling of genuine admiration over the result achieved. 
Mrs. Browning's chosen field of study was the one 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 8i 

productive of her first work of great importance, viz. her 
rendering of the ' Prometheus Bound ' of ^schylus. She 
had most probably been incited to this work by the 
companion, before mentioned, of her studies in Greek. 
It is a deed of no small magnitude for a young lady to 
accompHsh this at all, and might well daunt even deeper 
students ; but she had a profound appreciation of the old 
poet, and brought her love for his sublime tragedy to 
bear upon the task. It was scarcely to be expected that 
she would obtain a complete success, and she herself 
admitted that the translation was defective. She accord- 
ingly recast it, substantially changing the form of many 
passages. Though on reading it we gain the impression 
that it is a considerably Anglicised Greek drama, the 
vigour exhibited, and the true poetical fervour which is 
thrown around it, make it very welcome. The vocabulary 
of passion employed is rich and varied, whilst the rhythm 
affords scope for considerable poetic effects. In this, as 
in her other translations, she desired it to be understood 
that her one great idea was to catch the spirit of the 
original. The choruses are excellent, and possess, in 
addition to much music, all the fire that it is essential 
should burn in poems which have for their aim the 
depicting of the ecstasies and the writhings of passion. 
' A Lament for Adonis,' from Bion, is very happy and 

G 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



full of a warm imagery, and indicates, besides, the 
instinct and apprehension of the original poet. 

The genius of Mrs. Browning had two sides — the 
lyric and the dramatic : she had little special gift for 
either the idyllic or the epic. For the idyllic she was 
not either sufficiently didactic or intransitively calm ; for 
the epic her emotions were too keen and her sensibilities 
too quick and lively. Her longest poem has nothing of 
the epic about it, being in fact neither more nor less 
than a series of dramatic scenes. It does not profess to 
give the triumphant progress of a hero or a heroine, but 
to unfold to us the inner Hfe of its principal character. 
In a word, it is an Autobiography in verse. 

Considering first her lyrical capabilities— for it is 
really by means of these that her immortality is most 
secured — we are bound to say that they are of the highest 
order. Campbell was a great artist, but on reading his 
lyrics we are struck with the fact that they are in a large 
measure the product of a skilled mind rather than of a 
real singer. He has been succeeded by Tennyson in 
verbal perfection ; but to our mind neither of these true 
poets is the equal of Mrs. Browning in the matter of the 
lyric. Yet so high is our estimate of the authors of 
' Hohenlinden ' and ' Locksley Hall ' that no other poets 
in these later times, save Mrs. Browning and perhaps 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 83 

two others, can be put into comparison with them for 
real lyrical power. One of the two latter is Shelley, the 
other Burns, who is the superior of Shelley, and indubi- 
tably at the head of his race : and for this reason, that he 
invariably put his heart into his verse. Soul, not culture, 
thus gave us the best of our lyric poets. It is on the 
ground assigned in regard to Burns that we should give 
Mrs. Browning the next place amongst the moderns for 
lyrical genius, though these two poets were as wide 
asunder as the poles in all other respects. Let the reader 
dispassionately compare the lyrics which have been 
written by our principal singers during the past two or 
three generations. He will find, we think, that the 
position we have assumed is one which can be main- 
tained. Shelley undoubtedly exhibits the true lyrical 
fire, but his poems are not so varied as those of Mrs. 
Browning ; while her pathos is deeper than his and that 
of all his compeers. His imagination was, perhaps, 
somewhat higher, and he soared into cloud-land more fre- 
quently ; but the heart, which gave Burns his power, was 
the strength of Mrs. Browning. Shelley was almost too 
ethereal, too spiritual, and the consequence was that the 
human was somewhat overshadowed. His sensibility 
was of the keenest description, and many of his lyrics 
bear testimony to the truth of his averment that 



84 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

' Most men 
Are cradled into poetry by wrong ; 
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.' 

One cannot help thinking that Shelley's natural place in 
the world would be that of a spiritualised Spenser ; and 
if that calm could have come to him which alone can 
furnish the poet with the opportunity he ought to have, 
there is no knowing but he might have given us a work 
rich enough to justify this fancy of him. As it is, between 
writhings and groanings, the paroxysms of a much-tried 
spirit, he wrote those exquisite lyrics and poems, which 
we should be indeed loth to lose from our literature. 
Mrs. Browning had not the intense naturalness of Burns, 
and though both felt acutely, yet in character and tem- 
perament they had nothing in common. But, as we have 
said, the mainspring of the power of both was in the 
heart. They worked upon different principles and under 
different circumstances. Burns was moved to joy or 
sorrow by the impressions he drew from outward nature ; 
Mrs. Browning, on the contrary, found that nature re- 
ceived a tinge of melancholy or happiness from her own 
emotions. They are thus perfect contrasts in everything 
except the one great endowment of genius. And if the 
word epigrammatic may be used to denote that power 
which Burns had of describing an object in nature or a 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 85 

human emotion, Mrs. Browning was certainly not so 
epigrammatic as the northern singer. Leigh Hunt once 
referred to our poet as the sister of Alfred Tennyson, but 
the relation does not strike us as of the happiest. It 
does not set in the proper light either relatively to the 
other. In the first place, there is a good deal that is 
feminine (in the best sense) about the genius of Tenny- 
son, whilst occasionally there is that in Mrs. Browning's 
poetry as masculine as anything to be found in the 
Poet Laureate. In truth, we do not see much good in 
these comparisons at all ; the happiest expression yet 
given utterance to is the one previously mentioned, 
which describes her as Shakspeare's daughter. We are 
able to see some meaning in this ; we can feel that her 
genius stands in the same relation to that of the trans- 
cendent poet of the world as does a daughter to her 
parent. The lesser is the true miniature representation 
of the greater. 

The precise order in which Mrs. Browning's lyrics 
were written has never been stated, and it is not possible 
to arrive at a correct chronology with regard to them by 
internal evidence. The dates of several, however, are 
well known : and amongst the earliest of her productions 
was that entitled ' A Vision of Poets,' written in a very 
attractive, thoudi unusual metre. This vision of men of 



86 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

' foreheads royal with the truth/ as beheld in the magni- 
ficent temple of poetry, is one of her most successful as 
well as most graphic conceptions. No words are wasted 
in painting the portraits ; to each of the world-famous 
men are appropriated but a few lines, yet how telHng 

these are ! — 

' Shakspeare, on whose forehead climb 
The crowns o' the world : O eyes sublime 
With tears and laughters for all time ! ' 

The national poet's eminence was never more felicitously 
indicated than in these simple words — that is, more of 
him can be grasped than pages of criticism could accom- 
plish, though the poet's description is by no means 
exhaustive. Other excellent touches are those devoted 
to Euripides, Lucretius, ' nobler than his mood,' Goethe, 
Chaucer, Milton, Schiller, — 

' And Burns, with pungent passionings 
Set in his eyes : deep lyric springs 
Are of the fire-mount's issuings. 

' And poor, proud Byron, sad as grave 
And salt as life ; forlornly brave, 
And quiv'ring with the dart he drave.' 

And the lesson — it is worthy of the ' Vision.' Is it 
well for the poet to be born to suffer, and to die un- 
recognised and unrewarded ? Verily so ; he has lived 
for truth' and beauty — scarcely two as the author tells us 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 87 

— and should therefore be content. His experience has 
been, after all, better than that of the lower man, with 
lower pains and less transporting pleasures. He will be 
crowned, but crowned with no ordinary crown. His 
highest glory is to know, however the end is gained. 
And after death he will have two lives — one in the 
Beyond, and one in the Past, in the songs he has left 
behind him. Thus the end of the whole matter is 
reached, the conclusion being that ' Knowledge by 
suffering entereth, and Life is perfected by Death.' The 
lesson in some of its applications is not new ; the martyrs 
to truth in whatever shape have always taught it, but 
now the poet-martyrs teach it. For they are martyrs 
too frequently ; and that is not martyrdom simply which 
affects or destroys the body. The spirituality of Mrs. 
Browning's nature shines in this poem ; she affords some 
clue as to her ideal. It is a strain singularly pure and 
lofty, and shows a developing imagination w^hich augured 
powerfully and well for succeeding work. Its burden is 
more cheerful than that of ' The Two Voices,' a poem 
cast in the same mould, and to which the thought of the 
reader inevitably reverts while reading the ' Vision.' Its 
meaning is not to be restricted alone to the class of 
beings with whom it deals upon the surface, for the con- 
clusion is a triumphant one for the whole of the human 



88 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

race, whose ends of life are also made sacred by the 
same method. Having read this poem, one rises with a 
more hopeful heart to engage in the world's conflict. 

We pass on from such poems as ' The Romaunt of 
Margret ' and ' Isobel's Child ' with reluctance, for there 
is much in them both of concentrated strength and music 
which we could wish to have pointed out. Some have 
chosen them as well-nigh the happiest efforts of the poet, 
and they certainly are amongst the most beautiful notes 
of her lyre. Even the rhymes seem to possess a melan- 
choly befitting the subjects, whilst the mere repetition of 
the words ' Margret, Margret,' attains to real pathos in 
the cunning hands of the writer in the former poem. A 
singular affection for subjects which have in them the 
deepest anguish and suffering was early apparent in Mrs. 
Browning. The spirit very seldom danced, though when 
it did, the music was as true and fitting as the funeral 
dirge, which she more frequently gives us. Wandering 
amongst her poems is like standing in the forest alone, 
with the wailing wind and the flying rain as the only 
assurances of an existence sublimer than our own. But 
the profoundest depth of our heart is reached thereby. 
We would there had been no need for the lament and 
the sorrow, and yet we would not have lost those mys- 
terious thrills of the soul which her power has evoked- 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 89 

We must follow the poet in her quest of truth, follow her 
wherever she leads us, for by these means shall we 
emerge out of the thick folds of darkness into the broad 
light of day. This is one reason why we have such an 
admiration for, and attachment to her genius. Wherever 
she leads us, it is to make us better. Does she show us 
the poor whom we too often oppress ? It is that we may 
know wherein we have erred, and that in the future our 
hands may be washed clean from oppression and cruelty. 
Does she sometimes apparently darken the spirit? It is 
only to make it reflect so that it may endeavour to grope 
through the mysteries of life and nature up to God. 
Intellectual doubts are frequently disposed of in a very 
summary method, and one which has at sundry times in 
the world's history been most effective ; she sees their 
lowering forms gradually attenuate and disperse before 
the calm eye of Faith. Whatever of evil was rampant in 
the world, this could not be crushed out of her. To her, 
it was not always necessary to understand all the wrong 
that she beheld; she saw it, and hated it. She has 
helped men by her writings to do something towards 
making an end of it. She has been a mouthpiece for 
the poor and miserable ; the light of love beams on her 
forehead and dwells in her eyes ; the Divine feeling of 
compassion has swelled in her bosom, and for this 



90 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

reason, as for others, she has her place with those who 
are beloved of the human race. 

In proceedmg to mdicate what we consider some of 
Mrs. Browning's most admirable lyrics, we must deci- 
dedly name among the chief, ' The Rhyme of the 
Duchess May.' This ballad has in it not only a quaint- 
ness which conveys us back to the days of chivalry, but 
a strength of expression which is generally absent in the 
productions of that period. It bears unquestionably the 
stamp of genius. The poet for the time has completely 
forgotten herself, projecting her thoughts so far into the 
subject as to realise a most intense and tragic phase of 
human existence. There is the ring of melancholy in 
the lines, which is deepened by the constant recurrence 
of the allusion to the passing bell. The whole concep- 
tion is well worked out, and the powers of the wTiter are 
not frittered away before the close of the poem, as is too 
frequently the case with lyrics of similar length. The 
perfection of what is touching is reached in ' Bertha in 
the Lane,' where the dying maiden tells with simple 
pathos the incident which has led to her own heart's 
breaking. There is nothing forced here ; indeed, the 
language in some passages does not rise higher than that 
of actual conversation, the only adventitious poetical aid 
given to the setting of the story being that of the rhyme, 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 91 

which again is well chosen. The author has wisely 
avoided the slightest straining after effect, leaving the 
natural pathos in the story to accomplish the end which 
she desires. ' Lady Geraldine's Courtship ' is a romance 
which almost necessarily challenges comparison with 
' Locksley Hall/ and what is strange about the two, Mrs. 
Browning has, in our judgment, most truthfully drawn 
the male characters, while Tennyson has been the 
happier in all else in his poem. The poet who loved 
Lady Geraldine has many excellences, but his vocation 
has not properly imbued him with the kingly spirit, and 
he fails in the strength and robustness which we should 
expect. Besides, we quickly grow indignant that he 
should be so slow in reading that which should have 
been patent to his eyes. The character of the Earl is 
well drawn, his natural dignity being admirably caught in 
the few lines devoted to his limning. The old story of 
love springing where it listeth, unforced and unexpected, is 
once more dilated upon, and brought in this instance to 
a satisfactory consummation. As another specimen of 
the perfection of lyric art we may cite ' The Romance of 
the Swan's Nest,' one of the most beautiful and strangely- 
attractive series of stanzas ever penned. 

But let us pass on to ' The Cry of the Children,' that 
noble and striking remonstrance against the greed and 



92 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

oppression of mankind. Its intense pathos could surely 
only spring from a woman's heart, wounded in its love 
for the human by deeds enough to make the heavens 
blush. We have heard something of the sorrows of the 
factory children, but these lines have brought them close 
to us, and compelled us to feel that the poorest and 
weakest are our brethren and sisters. When was the 
anguish of a young spirit grasped so clearly as in the 
following lines, which are supposed to be spoken by the 
little workers amongst the iron wheels — those wheels 
which roll on ruthlessly, scarcely giving time for rest? — 

' Two words, indeed, of praying we remember, 

And at midnight's hour of harm, 
" Our Father," looking upward in the chamber, 

We say softly, for a charm. 
We know no other words except " Our Father," 

And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, 
God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather. 

And hold both within His right hand, which is strong. 
" Our Father ! " If He heard us. He would surely 

(For they call Him good and mild) 
Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, 

" Come and rest with Me, my child."' 

England has cleared herself from something of the re- 
proach contained in the poem from whence these lines 
are taken, and by God's grace she will be, perhaps, 
wholly free from stain in the (let us hope not far distant) 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 93 

future. There are other poems which exhibit the same 
large sympathetic heart as the one founded upon the 
miseries of the factory children, such as ' Mother and 
Poet,' and ' The Cry of the Human,' which latter reminds 
the world how many 

' Lips say, " God be pitiful," 
Who ne'er said, " God be praised ! " ' 

She felt as did that other poet of the poor, of whom we 
are proud, for all who are in any way crushed or bruised 
by the pressure of society and of social distinctions, or 
of social misfortunes. To be despised or to be sad was 
the way to be sure of her deepest interest. This is a 
trait which will serve to keep her memory green, for who 
among us will wiUingly let die the names of our philan- 
thropists — those who have been genuine in the active 
and written expressions of their sympathy? One likes 
to linger over the point how lofty genius steps down with 
more sincerity from its high estate to acknowledge fel- 
lowship with the mean and the wretched, than do the 
^//^i-/-philanthropists who consider that the claims of 
humanity are met by the doHng out of a pittance to any 
who may appeal to their condescension. Not always, 
yet very often, the great intellect is the index to the 
generous and simple spirit. 



94 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

To mark the range of our author's powers, compare 
such poems as ' A Child's Thought of God ' with those 
on Napoleon, or ' Casa Guidi Windows.' How sweetly 
and beautifully the first-named closes ! — 

' God is so good, He wears a fold 

Of heaven and earth across His face, 
Like secrets kept, for love, untold. 

' But still I feel that His embrace 

Slides down by thrills, through all things made, 
Through sight and sound of every place : 

' As if my tender mother laid 

On my shut lips her kisses' pressure. 
Half waking me at night, and said, 
" Who kiss'd you through the dark, dear guesser ? " ' 

This is better theology than the orthodox damnation 
with which we were terrified in our youth by narrow- 
minded bigots, who have probably ruined many a soul 
by preaching that God is powerful and vindictive, instead 
of God is love. We want more of the teaching which 
we get in the pages of this woman-poet. Then note how 
from these sweet and happy thoughts we can turn to 
matter more bold and striking, as in ' The Dead Pan,' 
which has a truly musical ring with it ; ' Cowper's Grave,' 
an immortal tribute to a suffering singer; ' Crowned and 
Buried,' an appreciation of the great and deathless 
Napoleon; but, above all, in this class of effort, to 'Casa 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 95 

Guidi Windows.' This poem exhibits Mrs. Browning in 
her greatest intellectual strength. The fabric is solid and 
enduring; the poem as sustained as anything which she 
has written, and more perfect than her remaining longer 
one. Clearly her feeling v/as in this work as well as her 
imagination, and the combined powers have given us 
something which cannot fail to live. 

Everyone who knows anything at all of the poet is 
familiar with her great love for Italy, one of the strongest 
passions of her life. It is in this poem that she chiefly 
unfolds to the world her feelings with regard to the 
emancipation of that country. From the Casa Guidi 
windows at Florence, her favourite city, she watched the 
struggle for liberty in which Italy engaged against Austria, 
and the assistance rendered towards this object by 
Napoleon III,, without whom probably it would never 
have been accomphshed. It was in praise of this cham- 
pion that she wrote some of her most impassioned strains. 
She knew the deceased Emperor at his best, when there 
seemed strongly upon him an enthusiasm for the cause 
which he had espoused that would be sure to go straight 
to the heart of the generous and impulsive poet; and in 
her utterances, therefore, she was lavish and unrestrained. 
To many in England this over-warmth of feeling will 
seem strange, but till we have felt all the bitterness which 



96 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

she felt for a degraded nation, and have seen the con- 
queror arise to hft her from the dust, we cannot say 
how deep our gratitude might be to such conqueror, his 
subsequent career notwithstanding. Our concern, how- 
ever, is with the poems, inchiding those entitled ' Poems 
before Congress,' in which Mrs. Browning set forth that 
patriotism, to be true, should not be manifested in 
behalf of one's own country alone. In ' Casa Guidi 
Windows ' the imagery is rich and the language flowing, 
worthy partners of the idea which engrossed the mind. 
In the course of the poem beautiful legends of Savona- 
rola and Michael Angelo are laid under contribution to 
heighten the charms of the song of their country ; and 
the closing pages of the poem contain an attractive 
episode in relation to the poet's infant son, whom she 
calls her young Florentine, he having been born in that 
city. She has thus connected her native land and that 
of her adoption more closely together, and claims nearer 
relationship to Italy than she ever felt before, through 
the link furnished in her child. It is impossible to do 
more than refer to the extraordinary wealth and strength 
of imagery which the poem contains; but as some justifi- 
cation for the high opinion we have expressed concerning 
it, we must not neglect to extract the passage in which, 
as before mentioned, the poet addresses her son : — 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 97 

' The sun strikes through the windows, up the floor ; 
Stand out in it, my own young Florentine, 

Not two years old, and let me see thee more ! 
It grows along thy amber curls, to shine 

Brighter than elsewhere. Now, look straight before, 
And fix thy brave blue English eyes on mine. 

And from thy soul, which fronts the future so, 
With unabashed and unabated gaze. 

Teach me to hope for, what the angels know 
When they smile clear as thou dost. Down God's ways. 

With just alighted feet, between the snow 
And snowdrops, where a little lamb may graze. 

Thou hast no fear, my lamb, about the road ; 
Albeit in our vain-glory we assume 

That, less than we have, thou hast learnt of God. 
Stand out, my blue-eyed prophet ! — thou, to whom 

The earliest world-day light that ever flowed. 
Through Casa Guidi windows chanced to come ! 

Now shake the glittering nimbus of thy hair. 
And be God's witness that the elemental 

New springs of life are gushing everywhere.' 

It is, we imagine, almost universally accepted that to 
wTite the sonnet excellently is about the most difficult 
performance in the domain of poetry. At any rate, it is 
the one branch of the art least frequently successfully 
achieved. It is questionable whether we have more 
than three or four English poets who can be credited 
with the highest execution in this respect. But to these 
three or four must be added the name of Mrs. Browning. 

H 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



After Shakspeare, we should be inclined to maintain that 
she is the equal of any. For proof of this, let the reader 
turn to her ' Sonnets from the Portuguese,' which, under a 
disguised name, are her own sonnets. To us they seem 
to fulfil all the requisites of the sonnet, including strength, 
imagery, sweetness, proportion or art, and massiveness. 
They are certainly equal to any of Wordsworth's and 
most of Milton's. The sonnet, with the great poets, has 
been generally most successful when personal to them- 
selves. They appear to have caught their passion and 
confined it within bounds, so that the sonnet, in master 
hands, becomes, as it were, ' foursquare to all the winds 
that blow.' There is no weak corner — all is soHd and 
compact. 

These sonnets by Mrs. Browning bear upon them her 
own very distinct individuality, and, as a means of setting 
her truly before her readers, are more explanatory than 
any other of her writings. Let us study them for a 
moment. In the first, the poet presents us with a picture 
of her mind at the period when she looked for Death as 
the release from a mortal imprisonment, whose shadow 
was laid deeply athwart her. The sonnet is exceedingly 
fine, and is as follows : — 

' I thought once how Theocritus had sung 
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years. 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 99 

Who each one in a gracious hand appears 

To bear a gift for mortals, old or young ; 

And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, 

I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, 

The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years. 

Those of my own life, who by turns had flung 

A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, 

So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move 

Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair ; 

And a voice said in mastery, while I strove : — 

" Guess now who holds thee ?" " Death," I said. But there, 

The silver answer rang, " Not Death, but Love ! "' 

Then comes a description of love, whose powei 
nothing can conquer, and which man is helpless to 
destroy. Spirits ' but vow the faster for the stars.' Yet, 
following on, we come to a declaration of her own un- 
worthiness, on the part of the singer, to be thus dis- 
covered and made blessed. The gloom is still too heavy 
about her, and will not be dispersed. She is fain to 
cry — 

' What hast tho^i to do. 
With looking from thy lattice lights at me, 
A poor, tired, wand'ring singer, singing through 
The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree ? 
The chrism is on thine head, — on mine, the dew, — 
And Death must dig the level where these agree.' 

How beautiful and how pathetic are these lines! A.nd 
the strain is continued, with no diminution of sadness, 

H 2 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



through several succeeding sonnets. The soul has found 
its counterpart, yet bids it begone; the proffered happi- 
ness is too great for it; it must not be. ' Go from me ! ' 
is now the cry; but the spirit is evidently yielding to the 
conqueror, for it adds : 

^The widest land 
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine, 
With pulses that beat double.' 

The record of life progresses, and the great argument is 
discussed, ' Can it be right to give what I can give ? ' 
Witness the seventh and immediately subsequent sonnets, 
for their dissection of the love passion, as it thrills 
through and permeates the being. Truly autobiogra- 
phical, indeed, are these confessions ; the seal of genuine 
experience is upon each one with its alternating hopes 
and fears, and its unfolding of a woman's heart. Surely 
finer subjective poetry than this was never written. The 
poet speaks to us without veils, and we hsten eagerly to 
the revelation. From the sadness and gloom we emerge 
at length into daylight ; the cypress has yielded to the 
rose. Love is justified ; it asks for and gives all. Troths 
are exchanged, and the singer has given up the grave for 
the sake of him who is now to be her life. We then see 
the plan of the whole work. First, we had the soul 
expecting death, then Life revivified by Love ; then the 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING loi 

grave put behind the soul ; and lastly, comes the sequel, 
the marriage of those whose history has been traced in 
the series of poems now about to conclude. Thus the 
poet muses, as she stands midway in her existence — the 
past behind her, the blissful future immediately in 
view : — 

' " My future will not copy my fair past." 
I wrote that once ; and, thinking at my side 
My ministering life-angel justified 
The word by his appealing look upcast 
To the white throne of God, I turned at last, 
And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied 
To angels in thy soul ! Then I, long tried 
By natural ills, received the comfort fast, 
While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim's staff 
Gave out green leaves, with morning dews impearled. 
I seek no copy now of hfe's first half : 
Leave here the pages with long musing curled. 
And write me new my future's epigraph, 
New angel mine, unhoped for in the world ! ' 

But to show what the wonderful depth of woman's love 
is, and to reach what seems the absolute fulness of 
human expression, we have the following triumphant 
song at the close of this personal history we have been 
examining : — 

' How do I love thee ? Let me count the ways. 
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 



I02 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

My soul can reach, when feehng out of sight 

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. 

I love thee to the level of every day's 

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right ; 

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. 

I love thee with the passion put to use 

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 

With my lost saints — I love thee with the breath, 

Smiles, tears, of all my life ! — and, if God choose, 

I shall but love thee better after Death,' 

We have thus glanced briefly through this remarkable 
series of psychological poems, one of the most precious 
bequests which a poet can leave us, revealing, as they do 
so clearly, the inner life of the writer. After their 
perusal, just as in the case of a study of Tennyson's * In 
Memoriam,' we feel that we have done more towards 
grasping the character of the poet than we are able to do 
by an intimate acquaintance with all her other works. 
The unity of the ' Sonnets from the Portuguese ' is pre- 
cise and definite ; no link in the chain can be with- 
drawn without destroying the value of the whole. There 
is no hesitancy in the utterance ; we here see Mrs. 
Browning at her highest, when she has passed through 
the noviciate of her art, and risen to the perfection of 
song. The sonnets glow with rapture, are exquisite in 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 103 

expression, and perfect in form. Taken collectively, 
and in the light of the one passion which they trace, 
from its inception to its culmination, we know nothing 
anywhere to compare with them. Intellect and passion 
are combined in an equal degree, and together fused 
into wondrous music. 

The love poetry from the hand which wrote thus 
passionately — and including compositions other than the 
sonnets — would in itself, and in its entirety, form a com- 
plete study, for its variety, sweetness, and pathos. But 
there yet remain to us some remarks on the work upon 
which, chiefly, the author's fame is conceded to rest — 
' Aurora Leigh.' A wide diversity of opinion exists with 
regard to its merits, and to the position which it ought to 
occupy in modern literature. The writer herself, in 
inscribing it to her cousin, described it as the most 
mature of all her works, and the one into which her 
' highest convictions upon Life and Art have entered.' 
Our own view of it is that, as a whole, it is somewhat 
inconsequent ; it lacks unity, for a poem of such magni- 
tude ; but even in these higher respects, though not per- 
fect, it is little beneath anything produced this generation. 
When we come to regard it in other aspects, however, 
our praise is almost necessarily unbounded. It is a 
poem which we could imagine Shakspeare dropping a 



I04 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

tear over for its humanity. Its intense subjectivity will 
exempt its influence on men from decay. Were we not 
amazed with the beauty and fulness of its poetry, we 
should be struck with its philosophy. The following 
lines might almost "be taken as a digest of the whole 
teaching of Carlyle : — 

' Get leave to work 
In this world — 'tis the best you get at all ; 
For God, in cursing, gives us better gifts 
Than men in benediction. God says " Sweat 
For foreheads," men say " crowns," and so we are crowned, 
Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel 
Which snaps with a secret spring. Get work, get work ; 
Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get.' 

The author's views on Art are set forth with some 
fulness. Art, we presume, notwithstanding all the dark- 
ness which has been cast around it by much speaking, 
means (if we are bound to describe it as concisely as 
possible) the closest and most perfect realisation of the 
various forms of Truth which it is in the power of man 
to attain. Some such idea as this certainly possessed 
the mind of Mrs. Browning ; and it was her opinion that 
that was real art which assisted in any degree to lead 
back the soul to contemplate God, the supreme Artist of 
the universe. Yet Art, even with her, was not the 
highest, the ultimate — 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 105 

' Art is much, but Love is more ! 
O Art, my Art, thou'rt much, but Love is more ! 
Art symbolises heaven, but Love is God 
And makes heaven.' 

As a solution for many of the problems of social life 
* Aurora Leigh ' must be pronounced a failure. It ex- 
hibits a wonderful sensitiveness to the evils resulting 
from the imperfect conditions of society, but it shows no 
powers of reconstruction. Its principal attraction, after 
its poetry, which stands supremely first therein, lies in 
the series of pictures of human life, in its varied phases, 
which it presents, and in its power of analysis of the 
human heart. Sincerity is also a prominent characteristic 
of the revelations which it makes ; it is an autobiography 
in which nothing is kept back, and the inner workings of 
a woman's heart were never more clearly transcribed. 
Unevenness characterises the narrative, but daring specu- 
lation and rich thought are embraced within the lines. 
There are passages of poetry as lofty and impassioned 
within the covers of this one book as are contained in 
any single lengthy modern poem of which we have know- 
ledge. From the level of occasional mediocrity we pass 
on to sublime imaginative heights. In this poem we 
have a vantage ground from which we survey the pano- 
rama of human life, illumined by the sun of genius. To 



io6 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

attempt to extract its beauties would be futile ; it is a 
garden in which every flower of sweetness blooms. Its 
aroma is amongst the most fragrant in literature. Or 
again, to change the figure, the poem is like a mine 
which yields more and more as the human digger presses 
it. When he first enters into possession he beholds the 
faint yellow streaks which betoken the golden treasure, 
but it is the subsequent labour which brings to light the 
actual El Dorado. 

One grand result of Mrs. Browning's Hterary career 
has been to disprove the assertion that women cannot 
write true poetry. Such a taunt may be considered as 
disposed of for ever. If we are to believe tradition, 
Sappho wrote the finest lyrics the world has seen ; but 
our own generation has beheld woman's genius take even 
a wider range. No woman, as yet, has written a great 
epic, or dramatic poetry of the highest order ; but how 
restricted is the number of men who have done this ! 
What there is in the nature of woman, however, to forbid 
her rivalling even the highest we do not know ; all we 
can say is, that genius, the dower of the gods, in its most 
transcendent manifestation, has, up to the present, been 
bestowed upon man. It may be, nevertheless, that we 
shall yet see the female complement of our great men — 
only, it cannot be obtained unless woman have a wider 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 107 

personal sphere. Still, it is most interesting to note that, 
in this nineteenth century she has demonstrated the 
possibihty of a future equality. What novelist, for 
instance, has more conclusively made good his claim to 
rank almost with the highest, than George Eliot ? How 
many of our artists have excelled Rosa Bonheur in her 
own special gifts ? What writer has exhibited a greater 
breadth of imagination and power than Georges Sand ? 
Lastly, where is the poetry which can be considered 
superior to Mrs. Browning's ? In poetry, fiction, and 
art, at any rate, man has little supremacy to boast of for 
the last forty or fifty years. We do not mean that his 
genius may not have overtopped, in individual cases, that 
of woman, but the difference has not been so perceptible 
as in past ages. Woman is now more abreast of man. Her 
altitude is no longer, when compared with him, that of 
Mont Blanc beside Chimborazo. It is more than probable 
that we shall never behold a female Homer, Plato, or 
Shakspeare ; but anything short of these woman may, and 
most probably will, become. Her passion is as deep, if 
her ambition be not so great, as man's. As her sympathies 
widen and she bears more of that burden of the world, 
experience — which, in its greatest depths and most 
extended scope, has hitherto largely pertained to man — 
she will produce work which shall be as potent and 



io8 POETS AND NOVELISTS.' 

beautiful as his, and possess the same inherent powers 
of immortality. 

Meanwhile, let us be just to what she has already 
accompHshed. A dispassionate examination of the 
poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning can, we maintain, 
only lead to this result — that she is the equal of any poet 
of our time in genius. In particular qualities she may 
appear inferior to some who could be cited, and whose 
names will irresistibly suggest themselves ; but in others 
she is as indubitably their superior; and, until we can 
decide who is greater, Byron or Wordsworth, Shelley or 
Coleridge, Homer or Shakspeare, we care not to assign 
her precise position. One thing is certain, however, her 
immortality is assured — she stands already crowned. As 
long as one human heart throbs for another she will be 
held in high esteem. Her poetry is that which refines, 
chastens, and elevates. We could think that with herself, 
as with one of her characters, ' som.e grand blind Love 
came down, and groped her out, and clasped her \vith a 
kiss ; she learnt God that way.' And who were her 
teachers ? Can we ask that of one who said, ' Earth's 
crammed with heaven, and every common bu?h afire with 
God ' ? The emerald beauty of a thousand valleys, 
embroidered by the silver threads of meandering rivers ; 
the grandeur of the everlasting hills with their lofty and 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 109 

majestic calm ; the terrible rolling of the restless and 
unsatisfied sea ; the stars that at midnight shine, looking 
down upon us like the eyes of those we love j above all, 
the whisper of God as it thrills through the human heart 
— these were her informers and teachers, the sources of 
her eminent inspiration. She sang of all these that men 
might be nobler, freer, and purer. Her apotheosis 
follows of Divine right with that of all the leaders of 
mankind : God endowed her, and we exalt her. 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 



[FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW] 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 

One trembles to think what the world would have be- 
come without its literary scourges. The soft irony of 
Montaigne, the withering gaze of Voltaire, the lightning 
flash of Swift, have now and again made it ashamed of 
its meanness and its vanity, and have discovered the 
pigmy concealed beneath the folds of the giant. There 
is no power touching whose exercise the whole of man- 
kind is so sensitive as that of ridicule. Man always has 
objected, and always will object, to being called a fool: 
how much greater, then, must his horror be at having the 
fact demonstrated. Agreeing with the critic in his con- 
demnation of the aphorism attributed to Shaftesbury, 
that ' ridicule is the test of truth,' we must still hold that 
it divides power almost equally with all other correctives 
of the public taste and morals. Wit dissects and de- 
stroys, but it has no creative force, is almost devoid of 
enthusiasm, and is no respecter of dignities and persons. 
There is much truth, however, which can in nowise come 



114 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

within its scope ; hence it is a fallacy to call it the test of 
truth. It is rather the discoverer of error. There is 
something in the mental constitution of the satirist which 
prevents him from taking an optimist view of things. 
He is all the more useful on that account. The negative 
gifts of the satirist, while not lifting him to an equality 
with the being who originates, still entitle him to a high 
place in the world's regard. It should be borne in mind, 
too, that though it will be generally found he lacks en- 
thusiasm, yet he possesses a sensitiveness as real, while 
differing in quality, as that of the artist and the poet. 

Thomas Love Peacock had every opportunity for 
becoming the calm, contemplative cynic. His life was 
long but uneventful. His fourscore years did not em- 
brace ten events to be remembered even in an ordinary 
life. He was born at Weymouth in 1785, and when a 
little over thirty years of age, obtained a post in a public 
office, as many others have done who afterwards enriched 
the national literature by their works. Peacock entered 
the East India House in 18 18, and was Examiner of 
India correspondence from the death of James Mill in 
1836 until March 1856, when he retired on a pension. 
He died January 23, 1866. He was a friend of Charles 
Lamb and of Shelley, for the latter of whom he acted as 
executor, and his wrongs doubtless made him still more 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 



sympathetic and friendly. His hatred of oppression in 
every guise is to be gathered in his novels, which breathe 
of liberty of thought, speech, and action. There were 
few, if any, riper scholars in his time. He was dis- 
tinguished especially for his love of the Greek, Latin, and 
Italian classics, in editions of which his library was extra- 
ordinarily rich. It is not a little singular to find one 
whose tastes were those of the recluse taking up in his 
writings the burning questions of the day and mingling 
in the fray of politics. His observation, however, was 
most extensive ; like his learning, it seemed to embrace 
all matters and topics which came to the surface of public 
life. In his own political views he must have been 
ardently progressive — Liberal in the highest sense of the 
word, and to the backbone. He would be as opposed 
to a Whig job as to a Conservative monopoly. The 
deep-rooted conviction he had of the rights of man, the 
individual, caused him to loathe injustice in whatever 
quarter it was perceived. It is impossible to read his 
works and not to admire his denunciations of the base, 
and his scorn of the petty, sins which are sometimes 
hugged so closely. He had many pagan qualities, and 
among them a pagan kind of rectitude. 

As to his humour, it is exclusively his own; one never 



ii6 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

meets with its precise flavour either before or after him. 
Mingled sometimes with a dash of effrontery, it is very 
searching, attaining its end by a kind of intellectual 
travesty. To the quack and the mountebank he is a 
most dangerous person, wielding a power of castigation 
that is amazing. To his honour, however, it can be said 
that throughout his whole works there is no demonstra- 
tion of personal feeling. Considering his endowment and 
the great temptation to wield the lash which invariably 
accompanies it, his self-repression was very great. Prin- 
ciples, not men, were the objects of his satire, and if 
occasionally individuals recoiled from the smart, it only 
showed how true had been his perceptions of character. 
Some humourists gently play with their subjects and tease 
them as a cat does a mouse; others knock them down 
with a bludgeon ; whilst others again make them despise 
themselves by inverting their natures, and showing them 
their vanity, hollowness, and pretence. Peacock adopted 
the last method with all the human excrescences he 
dealt with. To rebuke incapacity in attempting to deal 
with things too high for it, and to tear the glazed mask 
from the hollow cheek of pretence, were the objects to 
which he devoted himself His success in doing this 
warrants some reference to the means by which he ac- 
complished it, and justifies us in attempting to recover 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 117 

his name from the comparative indifference in which it 
has too long lain. 

The chronological order in which his works were 
issued will not be strictly adhered to in the comments it 
may be necessary to make upon them; in fact there 
seems to be some doubt as to their order, if not of issue 
at least of composition. Undoubtedly, however, the 
public has been right in this instance in its association of 
his most widely-known novel with the name of the author 
as being intrinsically equal, if not superior, to any of the 
rest. Other works may have their own special charm, 
but that which is richest in the exhibition of the most 
prominent gift of the author is ' Headlong Hall' Before 
the publication of this work there had been no writer 
who so boldly flung himself into the arena against con- 
temporary humbugs. It is infinitely refreshing to read 
his straightforward, scathing denunciations, as well as his 
insinuating facetiousness and inuendo. He seems to 
revel in a tilt against all that the world praises as proper 
and respectable. An intellectual and material epicurean- 
ism pervades his pages, and when the rolHcking wit 
ceases to flow it is only to give time for the passing of 
the bottle. We not only get ' the feast of reason and 
flow of soul,' but an unswerving devotion to those 
creature comforts in which the clergy — first in good 



ii8 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



works — have ever been our leaders. Mr. Headlong, the 
representative of the ancient Welsh family of the Head- 
longs, claiming superior antiquity to Cadwallader, con- 
tracts a strange taste for a Welsh squire — the taste for 
books. He next desires to pass for a philosopher and a 
man of taste, and comes up to Oxford to enquire for 
other men of taste and philosophers ; but ' being assured 
by a learned professor that there were no such things in 
the University,' he proceeds to London, where he makes as 
extensive an acquaintance with philosophers and dilettanti 
as his ambition could desire. Several of these he invites 
to Headlong Hall, and the staple of the volume is com- 
posed of their doings and their discussions. The four 
leading personages who sustain the brunt of the battle 
are — Mr. Foster, the perfectibihan, who takes the bright 
view of ever)^thing ; Mr. Escot, the deteriorationist, who 
takes the dark view of everything ; Mr. Jenkison, the 
statu- quo-ite, who has arguments to advance on both 
sides, but is nearly always in favour of allowing things to 
remain as they are ; and the Rev. Dr. Gaster, a worthy 
divine who can deliver a learned dissertation on the art 
of stuffing a turkey, and to whom the consumption of a 
bottle of port is a very slight matter. It is amusing to 
note how the various class of thinkers are trotted out one 
after another on their respective hobbies, and how im- 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 119 

partial the author is in dividing his favours amongst 
them. Nor is it a httle singular that all the specimens of 
the clergy whom Peacock has dra\vn are of one type ; 
they are all jolly men of the world. About fifty or sixty 
years ago, the time at which he wrote, the conventional 
parson was very frequently of this stamp. His life was 
passed between fox-hunting, card-playing, and drinking. 
Since then the muscular Christian and other excellent 
men have arisen. But there have also sprung up with 
them men almost of a more mischievous type than the 
old fox-hunter. There are too many pitiful shepherds 
left who, in quiet, out-of-the-way villages make the life of 
the poor a burden to them. These continually enlarge 
on the duty of the labourers to keep their proper stations, 
and to revere the clergy and the squirearchy — the former 
of whom are to provide for them their opinions and their 
spiritual food, the latter their temporal comforts. Many 
of the later clergy are in the eyes of sensible men little 
less contemptible than the old ; the venue of our con- 
tempt has been changed, that is all. But there is the 
same difficulty existing now that there was in Peacock's 
time, and indeed has been in all ages, — the difficulty of 
persuading the clergy to take one step towards reform in 
any direction, till nearly all other classes have taken ten. 
Progress, to them, has generally meant the destruction of 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



their cherished rights. The Rev. Dr. Gaster cared Httle 
about questions which caused the thoughtful intellects of 
his day great concern, but in tossing off a bumper of 
Burgundy he was equal to the best. Occasionally he 
had a forcible way with him, and said smart things, but 
he did not profess to be so proficient in knowledge as 
Mr. Panscope, ' the chemical, botanical, geological, astro- 
nomical, mathematical, metaphysical, meteorological, 
anatomical, physiological, galvanistical, musical, pictorial, 
bibliographical, critical philosopher, who had run through 
the whole circle of the sciences, and understood them all 
equally well.' The author gives us the portraits of four 
critics, Mr. Gall, Mr. Treacle, Mr. Nightshade, and Mr. 
Mac Laurel, with accurate descriptions of their various 
modes of criticism — the criticism seeming at that period 
to be about as deficient in vis as it generally is now; but 
the happiest passages in the book are those devoted to 
the speculations of the various philosophers. Two 
schools of thought are presented to us in the following 
few sentences: — 

' " I conceive," said Mr. Foster, " that men are virtuous in 
proportion as they are enlightened ; and that, as every gene- 
ration increases in knowledge, it also increases in virtue." 
" I wish it were so," said Mr. Escot, "but to me the very re- 
verse appears to be the fact. The progress of knowledge is 
not general : it is confined to a chosen few of every age. 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 121 

How far these are better than their neighbours, we may 
examine by-and-by. . . . Give me the wild man of the 
woods : the original, unthinking, unscientific, unlogical 
savage : in him there is at least some good ; but, in a 
civilised, sophisticated, cold-blooded, mechanical, calculating 
slave of Mammon and the world, there is none — absolutely 
none. Sir, if I fall into a river, an unsophisticated man will 
jump in and bring me out ; but a philosopher will look on 
with the utmost calmness, and consider me in the light of a 
projectile, and making a calculation of the degree of force 
with which I have impinged the surface, the resistance of 
the fluid, the velocity of the current, and the depth of the 
water in that particular place, he will ascertain with the 
greatest nicety in what part of the mud at the bottom I may 
probably be found, at any given distance of time from the 
moment of my first immersion ! " ' 

All which is rather hard both on the drowning man and 
the philosopher. The plot of this novel, if novel it can 
be called, is very subsidiary to the other purposes of the 
author, and has nothing whatever in it of a striking sort ; 
but there are scattered here and there through its pages 
fine descriptions of Welsh scenery, which seems to have 
possessed a peculiar charm for Peacock. His real 
strength, nevertheless, lies in another direction— a readi- 
ness to grasp instantaneously the views and characters of 
men, and a singular faculty of reproducing them in 
dialogue. The entire work, ' Headlong Hall,' is a series 
of portraits painted by means of opinions, some of them 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



carefully executed and filled in, others drawn in a few 
rough but unmistakable touches. We have Miss Philo- 
mela Poppyseed, the compounder of novels ; Mr. Chro- 
matic; Sir Patrick Prism; Mr. Cranium; INIiss Tenorina; 
Lord Littlebrain, &c., whose idiosyncrasies are mostly 
betrayed by their names. The author also exhibits a 
remarkable power of assimilation from other writers, being 
able to enforce his points with the most apposite quota- 
tions from all sources, in all classes and all ages. 

In ' Nightmare Abbey,' another remarkable work, we 
get the same brilliancy, and again meet with characters 
whom we have recognised in the world. There is Mr. 
Scythrop dowry, heir to the owner of the Abbey, who 
becomes ^ troubled with the passion for reforming the 
world,' and meditates on the practicability of reviving a 
confederation of regenerators. He publishes a book on 
the subject, of which only seven copies are sold; but 
that does not deter him. He proposes to his beautiful 
lady-love, Miss Marionetta O'CarroU, that they should 
each open a vein in the other's arm, mix their blood in a 
bowl, and drink it as a sacrament of love — and, in fact, 
plays transcendental madman to the top of his bent. 
Then we have Mr. Toobad, who prophesies that 'the 
devil has come among mankind, having great wrath ; ' 
the Hon. Mr. Listless, with shattered nerves and a system 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 



incapable of exertion ; Mr. Flosky, who considers modem 
literature is a north-east wind — ' a blight of the human 
soul.' In the mouth of one of the characters two sen- 
tences are put which are a deeper, truer comment upon 
the French character than whole volumes which have 
been written since. ' A Frenchman,' he says, ' is born 
in harness, ready saddled, bitted, and bridled, for any 
tyrant to ride. He will fawn under his rider one 
moment, and throw him and kick him to death the next ; 
but another adventurer springs on his back, and by dint 
of whip and spur, on he goes as before.' An epitome of 
the history of France since the Revolution of 1789. The 
following comparison between our own ' enlightened ' 
age and the past, delivered by Mr. Toobad, has in it 
many points which might well give us pause : — 

'• Forsooth, this is the enlightened age. Marry, how ! 
Did our ancestors go peeping about with dark lanterns, and 
do we walk at our ease in broad sunshine t What do we 
see by it which our ancestors saw not, and which, at the 
same time, is worth seeing.^ We see a hundred men 
hanged, where they saw one. We see five hundred trans- 
ported, where they saw one. We see five thousand in the 
workhouse, where they saw one. We see scores of Bible 
Societies, where they saw none. We see paper, where they 
saw gold. We see men in stays, where they saw men in 
armour. We see painted faces, where they saw healthy 
ones. We see children perishing in manufactories, where 



124 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

they saw them flourishing in the fields. We see prisons, 
where they saw castles. We see masters, where they saw 
representatives. In short, they saw true men, where we see 
false knaves. They saw Milton, and we see Mr. Sackbut.' 

It is impossible even to enumerate here the vast 
variety of subjects which the writer touches upon. His 
range is almost unlimited ; in every page there is either 
an old superstition exploded or a new philosophy criti- 
cised. The portraits of Shelley and Coleridge will easily 
be recognised in ' Nightmare Abbey,' for in spite of 
gross caricature there is also a striking amount of 
vraisemblance. 

In ' Crotchet Castle ' the author still ^\Tites with the 
pen of wormwood and ink of gall. The motto suffi- 
ciently indicates in the outset what a pungency of wit 
may be expected — ' Le monde est plein de fous, et qui 
n'en veut pas voir, doit se tenir tout seul, et casser son 
miroir.' The complacency of many people is effectually 
destroyed by the way the author himself breaks the 
mirrors in which they have been wont to survey their 
own perfections. Possibly there may be those who 
think that in this work he has overstepped the just 
bounds of ridicule, and endeavoured to bring into con- 
tempt persons who are really useful to their generation. 
This is the conclusion to which a merely surface-reading 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 



of his books would lead, and probably many would rise 
from their perusal with an impression as unjust to the 
writer as could well be. Because Peacock ruthlessly 
condemns the pretenders of science, it is not to be sup- 
posed, and will not be by the really candid judge, that 
he has no sympathy with its true and earnest devotees. 
A Newton would receive his homage equally with an 
yEschylus or a Homer. He only wishes to prick the 
windbag ; to show upon what a very Httle a reputation 
which the world chooses to honour is sometimes built. 
It is the bubble which he desires to burst — the unsound- 
ness in our social and political economics he endeavours 
to expose. Probably there was no one who would have 
felt it more deeply than he, if he had imagined that what 
he was writing would be turned from its purpose, either 
wilfully or ignorantly, and the writer made to appear an 
enemy of truth. It is hard, at times, to get rid of the 
idea that he is laughing at all the rest of the world, which, 
in any, is the surest test of folly, for the mighty wisdom 
of the cachinnatory great one himself is only a river into 
which the lesser streams of wisdom in others have flowed. 
There is no human being who can afford to laugh at and 
despise the whole race, simply because there is no human 
being who is not indebted to it. But we absolve our 
author at once from any such charge as this. Having 



126 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

comprehended in some degree the stand-points from 
which he has shot his arrows, we are bound to confess, 
not only that his aim is true, but that he has never chosen 
his subjects thoughtlessly or unjustifiably. Adam Smith 
Hved long before him, and his principles were well esta- 
blished in the public mind, and acknowledged to be in 
many respects unassailable. It is not to be imagined for 
a moment that either he or his true followers were 
satirised in the person of the Scotch political economist 
who figures in these pages. Yet, strange to say, there 
have been critics who have credited him with some such 
aims, and have employed their acumen in discovering 
how he has transfixed this and that personage who has 
hitherto been held as an authority in the branch of 
literature or science to which he has devoted himself. 
Nothing could be more fallacious. Peacock was a man 
who was thoroughly abreast with the intellectual progress 
of his time ; he was deeply interested in it, and capable 
of sympathising to the full with all those men whose 
solid attainments and brilliant talents have been of ser- 
vice to humanity. His satire wants looking at as he 
wished it to be viewed, and it will be seen clearly of 
what immense value is the winnowing implement of his 
ridicule. The principal character in '■ Crotchet Castle ' 
is Mr. Mac Quedy, the Scotch political economist afore- 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 127 

said, or Mac Q. E. D., the son of a demonstration — and 
certainly the way in which he is dealt with allows of no 
misunderstanding. Then we have the transcendental 
schools criticised in the person of Mr. Skionar, with 
more of the broad farce in his delineation than is con- 
spicuous in the economist, the subject affording better 
scope for it. Mr. Chainmail is an antiquary, devoted to 
singing the glories of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
whilst Mr. Crotchet, the proprietor of the Castle, is one 
who has made his money in the City with neither more 
nor less conscientiousness than thousands who are now 
continually occupied on 'Change in the same operation. 
Perhaps the best character in the book for life-like 
vigour and reality is the Rev. Dr. FoUiott, the exceed- 
ingly vigorous Christian, who batters down the theories 
of Messrs. Mac Quedy and Skionar with the force of a 
sledge-hammer, and who is not unlike, in his style of 
conversation, the great Johnson. When asked if he sets 
no value upon ' the right principles of rent, profit, wages, 
and currency,' he answers : ' Sir, my principles in these 
things are to take as much as I can get, and to pay no 
more than I can help. These are every man's principles, 
whether they be the right principles or no. There, sir, 
is political economy in a nutshell.' The Doctor is 
wrong; these are not every man's principles, but they 



128 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

are very largely every man's practice — which, notwith- 
standing, amounts to very nearly the same thing. We 
should fail in giving an idea of the piquancy of the 
various conversations in which the several characters 
take part. Peacock has written no work where the 
dialogue is more brilliant. From the chapter on theories 
we extract only a few sentences, which may serve to 
indicate his general style : — 

' Mr. Crotchet, Jun. There is one point in which philo- 
sophers of all classes seem to be agreed ; that they only 
want money to regenerate the world. 

' Mr. Mac Quedy. No doubt of it. Nothing is so easy as 
to lay down the rules of perfect society. There wants 
nothing but money to set it going. I will explain myself 
fully and clearly by reading a paper {producing a large 
scroll). In the infancy of society — 

* The Rev. Dr. Folliott. Pray, Mr. Mac Quedy, how is it 
that all gentlemen of your nation begin everything they 
write with ' the infancy of society ' ? 

' Mr. Mac Quedy. Eh, sir, it is the simplest way to begin 
at the beginning. In the infancy of society, when Govern- 
ment was invented to save a percentage ; say two and a half 
per cent. 

' The Rev. Dr. Folliott I will not say any such thing. 

' Mr Mac Quedy. Well, say any percentage you please. 

' The Rev. Dr. Folliott. I will not say any percentage at 
all. 

^ Mr. Mac Quedy. On the principle of the division of 
labour 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 129 

' The Rev. Dr. Folliott. Government was invented to 
spend a percentage. 

' Mr. Mac Quedy. To save a percentage. 

* The Rev. Dr. Folliott. No, sir, to spend a percentage : 
and a good deal more than two and a half per cent. Two 
hundred and fifty per cent. That is intelligible. 

' Mr. Mac Qiiedy. " In the infancy of society " 

' Mr. Toogood. Never mind the infancy of society. The 
question is of society in its maturity. Here is what it should 
be {prodiccing a paper). I have laid it down in a diagram. 

^ Mr. Skionar. Before we proceed to the question of 
Government, we must discriminate the boundaries of sense, 
understanding, and reason. Sense is a receptivity. 

'■Mr. Crotchet, Jim. We are proceeding too fast. Money 
being all that is wanted to regenerate society, I will put into 
the hands of this company a large sum for the purpose. 
Now let us see how to dispose of it.' 

Then follow as many plans for its disposal as there 
are parties to the discussion. Dr. Folliott denies all Mr. 
Mac Quedy's positions, and affirms that political economy 
does no such thing as stand in the same relation to the 
state as domestic economy does to the family. 'In the 
family,' says the Doctor, in sentences which are appa- 
rently a poser to the economist, ' there is a paterfamilias, 
who regulates the distribution, and takes care that there 
shall be no such thing in the household as one dying of 
hunger, while another dies of surfeit. In the state it is 
all hunger at one end, and all surfeit at the other.' But 

K 



I30 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

we must leave the epicurean Doctor, with his easy jovial 
manners, his shrewd sense, and also his many fallacies. 
The end of it all is that Crotchet keeps the money in his 
pocket, and the scheme for the regeneration of the world 
falls to the ground. 

Amongst other subjects which come under the lash 
in this volume are the practices of Mr. Puffall, who 
obtains sketches from Lady Clarinda, and recommends 
them to the world as the work of a lady of quality, who 
has made very free with the characters of her acquain- 
tance. The novel appears as ' the most popular produc- 
tion of the day,' but, as the novelist herself slily remarks 
to a friend, ' the day ' is a very convenient phrase ; it 
allows of three hundred and sixty- five 'most popular 
productions ' in a year, and in leap year one more. The 
purse-proud were always the aversion of Peacock, and 
in this work he is again scathing in his invective upon 
the greedy appetite for wealth, and the unscrupulousness 
which so frequently attends its acquirement. The cha- 
racter of Mr. Touch-and-go, the great banker — who, 
together with the contents of his till, was reported 
absent one morning — might do duty for many others 
before and since ; he is one of the ' representative men ' 
forgotten by Emerson. 

* Maid Marian ' is an investiture of the old story of 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 131 

Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest with new grace and 
vitality. As with all its author's works, however, it is 
not destitute of a purpose, though the satire is not so ap- 
parent upon the face of the story itself. The narrative 
is excellently told, and we question whether there was 
ever a more poetical description penned of the home of 
the bold outlaw than this. It is put into the mouth of 
the Friar, who, in answer to the remark of a captured 
baron that he has fallen into 'fine company,' replies, ' In 
the very best of company, in the high court of Nature, 
and in the midst of her own nobiHty. Is it not so ? 
This goodly grove is our palace : the oak and the beech 
are its colonnade and its canopy : the sun, and the 
moon, and the stars are its everlasting lamps : the grass, 
and the daisy, and the primrose, and the violet are its 
many-coloured floor of green, white, yellow, and blue : 
the may-flower, and the woodbine, and the eglantine, 
and the ivy are its decorations, its curtains, and its 
tapestry : the lark, and the thrush, and the nightingale 
are its unhired minstrels and musicians. Robin Hood 
is king of the forest both by dignity of birth and by 
virtue of his standing army : to say nothing of the free 
choice of his people.' The author strikes, through the 
medium of the old history, at the assumed principle in 
many quarters in our own day, that Might involves Right, 

K2 



132 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

a matter in which there is no necessity to follow him with 
a disquisition at the present moment. 

A treatise might be written, with an almost number- 
less catalogue of instances appended, upon authors who, 
from various circumstances and considerations, have 
been hurried into too rapid writing. With many minds 
the mere fact of pubhcation is a great inducement to 
commit the unpardonable offence, for such it must be 
regarded in the interests of the general reader. The 
time came to Peacock once in his career, and at an early 
stage, when the polished steel weapon was seen to be 
blunted. The incisiveness which distinguishes most of 
his writings is not so apparent in * MeHncourt ; or, Sir 
Oran Haut-ton.' Here we have less sarcasm, or rather 
what we have is so largely diluted that occasionally we 
doubt whether we are drawing from the same spring 
which has hitherto given us such delight. The book 
bears the traces of hasty composition, and altogether we 
should regard it as much inferior to our author at his 
best. It partakes more of the form of the ordinary 
novel, but, just as much as this is the case, does it lose in 
those other quaHties which are generally associated with 
the name of its writer. Isolated scenes and passages 
may be good, but there exists a verbosity to which we 
have been unaccustomed, and which we can ill brook. 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 133 

After the feast of sparkling wines and choice viands 
which he has again and again placed before us, the 
palate remains comparatively unexcited and unsatiated 
with this specimen of intellectual catering. The truth is 
that Peacock's genius was neither of the novelistic nor 
the dramatic kind, and his attempt to portray an ordinary 
heroine in Anthelia Melincourt must be pronounced a 
failure. Far higher success is achieved m some of the 
other characters which it is easy to classify amongst the 
peculiar creations of the author. Sir Telegraph Paxarett, 
for instance, is a character well conceived and sustained, 
with a great amount of originality in his development ; 
and so is the Rev. Mr. Portpipe, whose very name is a 
little idyll upon the course and character of his clerical 
life. But the best of all the characters is Sir Oran Haut- 
ton, and the happiest parts are those referring to political 
anomalies, which are castigated con amore. There are 
the boroughs of Onevote and Threevotes and Fewvotes, 
with the peculiarities attendant upon each, and all 
touched upon with uncommon humour. The book is 
probably palling and even fooHsh to those who take no 
pleasure in intellectual discussions and arguments, but 
to the thinker who has at heart the purification of society 
from all that corrupts and degrades, it will not be with- 
out a special attraction. But it is writing which needs 



134 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

digesting, not skimming. The assumptions of one 
of the learned writers in a celebrated Quarterly are 
very severely handled, the reviewer being credited with 
the idea that he and those who think with him are 
the only wise — a fallacy by no means confined to per- 
sons holding one set of opinions. We part from the 
volume, nevertheless, with a decided impression of 
genius veiled. 

Reference has already been made to the attachment 
which Peacock conceived for Welsh scenery, and another 
proof of it is afforded by a later work of his, and one of 
the most pleasant which has proceeded from his pen, 
'■ The Misfortunes of Elphin.' Here we behold a vene- 
rable story clothed by genius with all the reality of actual 
circumstance. The result of the author's labour is per- 
fectly satisfactory. The style is never involved, though 
the language is now and then pedantic. The history is 
fixed in the sixth century, when the nominal sovereignty 
of Britain was held by Uther Pendragon. Amongst 
the petty kings was Gwythno Garanhir, King of Care- 
digion. This monarch was not fond of the sea, and 
built a palace on the rocky banks of the Mawddach, and 
also erected watchtowers which were subordinate to a 
central castle commanding the sea-port of Gwythno. 
In this castle dwelt Prince Seithenyn, who appears to 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 135 

have been a sort of First Commissioner of Works to the 
King. He differs in these considerable respects from 
our modern First Commissioner, namely, that he drank 
the profits of his office, ' and left the embankment which 
was to keep out the sea to his deputies, who left it to 
their assistants, who left it to itself.' Elphin, the son of 
the King, informs the Commissioner to his momentary 
discomfort, one day, that the embankment is rotten, and 
should all be made sound, to which the latter replies : — 
' So I have heard some people say before, perverse 
people, bhnd to venerable antiquity : that very unamiable 
sort of people, who are in the habit of indulgmg their 
reason. . . . There is nothing so dangerous as innova- 
tion. See the waves in the equinoctial storms, dashing 
and clashing, roaring and pouring, spattering and 
battering, rattling and battling against it. I would not 
be so presumptuous as to say I would build anything 
that would stand against them half an hour ; and here 
this immortal old work, which God forbid the finger of 
modern mason should bring into jeopardy, this immortal 
work has stood for centuries, and will stand for centuries 
more, if we let it alone. It is well : it works well : let 
well alone. Cupbearer, fill. It was half rotten when I 
was born, and that is a conclusive reason why it should 
be three parts rotten when I die.' Admirable sarcasm ! 



136 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

The policy of masterly inaction was very disastrous, as 
of course it always is in matters social and political. 
The waves beat high and effected an entrance ; the 
tower fell into the surf, and the entire structure was in 
danger. The inhabitants fled, whilst Seithenyn swore 
that an enemy had done the deed. He leaped mto the 
torrent, from which we afterwards discover he was mira- 
culously saved by clinging to a barrel, whose contents had 
previously cheered his inner organisation. Elphin quits 
the castle, bearing with him Angharad, the lovely 
daughter of Seithenyn. Then come the lamentations 
of King Gwythno over his inundated lands — excellent 
stanzas, graj^hic and concentrated in expression. Thus 
was the kingdom of Caredigion ruined. Prince Elphin, 
who has married Angharad, is very fond of fishing, and 
one day he has a miraculous draught (subsequent to a 
dream on the subject), which proves to be a little child. 
Its surpassing beauty causes Angharad to make the ex- 
clamation, * Taliesin ; ' ' Radiant Brow.' The found- 
ling is adopted by the couple, and in after years becomes 
the celebrated bard Taliesin, and marries Melanghel, the 
daughter of his foster-parents. Taliesin grew up in 
excellent knowledge, but the science of political economy 
being then unknown, he knew nothing of ' the advan- 
tage of growing rich by getting into debt and paying 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 137 

interest.' The author further remarks, ' They had no 
steam-engines, with fires as eternal as those of the nether 
world, wherein the squalid many, from infancy to age, 
might be turned into component portions of machinery 
for the benefit of the purple-faced few. They could 
neither poison the air with gas, nor the waters with its 
dregs : in short, they made their money of metal, and 
breathed pure air, and drank pure water Hke unscientific 
barbarians.' In all which things there is verily much 
food for reflection. The multiplication of species in a 
htde kingdom like England must be attended with in- 
convenience and suffering to the majority. The whole- 
sale system of gomg to the wall is inevitable : but do we 
not as some compensation for using up the vital force ot 
the labouring class, offer them churches and chapels, 
regiments of the cloth, ' intellectual ' enjoyments, and the 
brilliant and splendid spectacle for their admiration of 
an aristocracy which is kind enough to live on the sweat 
of their brow, and in numberless cases on their absolute 
degradation? Far be it from us, then, to say that we 
have made no progress since the time of the Welsh bard. 
But, to proceed with the story, leaving all who may 
be interested in it to pursue their investigations of the 
constitution of society at that happy period. Elphin 
succeeds his father as king, but for certain indiscreet 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



boastings, as they are held, he falls into bondage to King 
Maelgon, who has resolved to seize upon his wife. The 
rival king attempts to take her during the absence of her 
husband. But his emissaries are entrapped, and the 
matter afterwards coming before the great King Arthur, 
together with other vexed questions, he decides accord- 
ing to his far-famed principles of equity, and an exchange 
of prisoners is effected. TaHesin, who has been chiefly 
instrumental in procuring this termination of affairs, is 
rewarded by Elphin with his daughter's hand. We get 
glimpses of Enid, Queen Gwenyvar, Sir Gawain, Sir 
Tristram, and other knights and ladies familiar to the 
reader of Arthurian romance ; and the volume closes 
with a Grand Bardic Congress at Caer Lleon. Undoubt- 
edly one of its greatest charms lies in the beauty of the 
poems which are scattered through the various divisions. 
They are imbued with more sublimity and tenderness 
than other poems of the author which may lay claim to 
be more entirely original in conception. The modern 
Enghsh seems at any rate to have caught the spirit of the 
old bards, if the form of expression be wanting. We 
cannot reproduce here the most striking of these poems, 
but the cultivated mind was rarely more forcibly ex- 
hibited than in their composition. 

Although travelling over a portion of the ground 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 139 

already covered in previous novels, ' Gryll Grange/ the 
last work by Peacock, is one perhaps intrinsically supe- 
rior to all except ' Headlong Hall.' Here he bravely 
combats many abuses which we regret to say have even 
yet not entirely disappeared. It may be commended to 
those who would rob us of our national lands and forests, 
to the poisoners of our atmosphere and our water, to the 
bores in Parliament, and to the useless livers in the 
world generally. Hear him on Parliament. ' The 
wisdom of Parliament,' says the Rev. Dr. Opimian, 
another of those clever epicurean divines of whom we 
have had something already, ' is a wisdom sui generis. 
It is not like any other wisdom. It is not the wisdom 
of Socrates, nor the wisdom of Solomon. It is the 
Wisdom of Parliament.' The excellent Doctor could 
not get much farther than this in our day. But pursue 
the analogy between that time and the present. ' The 
Wisdom of Parliament has ordered the Science to do 
something. The Wisdom does not know what nor the 
Science either. But the Wisdom has empowered the 
Science to spend some millions of money; and this, no 
doubt, the Science will do. When the money has been 
spent, it will be found that the Something has been worse 
than nothing.' The term ' honourable ' is also objected 
to, for '- Palestine soup is not more remote from the true 



HO POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Jerusalem than many an honourable friend from public 
honesty and honour.' How much golden advice is com- 
pressed into the following words, the spirit lying beneath 
which would save this most Christian nation from hum- 
bling itself in the dust before its Creator for many cala- 
mities which might have been prevented ! 

' Honesty would materially diminish the number of acci- 
dents. High-pressure steam boilers would not scatter death 
and destruction around them, if the dishonesty of avarice 
did not tempt their employment where the more costly low- 
pressure would ensure absolute safety. Honestly-built 
houses would not come suddenly down and crush their occu- 
pants. Ships, faithfully built and efficiently manned, would 
not so readily strike on a lee-shore, nor go instantly to pieces 
on the first touch of the ground. Honestly-made sweet- 
meats would not poison children ; honestly-compounded 
drugs would not poison patients. In short, the larger por- 
tion of what we call accidents are crimes.' 

Criticism could lend no additional force to such 
language as this, or more clearly show its appropriateness 
to our present year of grace. The science of panto- 
pragmatics, which is described as ' a real art of talking 
about an imaginary art of teaching every man his own 
business,' is one that is tantaHsingly gridironed, and our 
system of competitive examinations was never set in a 
more ridiculous light than in these pages. We have 
papers which would have excluded Marlborough from 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 141 

the army and Nelson from the navy : on other matters 
hear what our author says : — 

' Ask the hon. member for Muckborough on what acqui- 
sitions in history and mental and moral philosophy he founds 
his claim of competence to make laws for the nation ? He 
can only tell you that he has been chosen as the most con- 
spicuous Grub among the Money-grubs of his borough to be 
the representative of all that is sordid, selfish, hard-hearted, 
unintellectual, and anti-patriotic, which are the distinguish- 
ing qualities of the majority among them. Ask a candidate 
for a clerkship what are his qualifications ? He may 
answer, ' All that are requisite — reading, writing, and arith- 
metic' ' Nonsense,' says the questioner ; '■ do you know the 
number of miles in direct distance from Timbuctoo to the 
top of Chimborazo ? ' ' I do not/ says the candidate. ' Then 
you will not do for a clerk,' says the competitive examiner. 
Does the Money-grub of Muckborough know? He does 
not ; nor anything else. The clerk may be able to answer 
some of the questions put to him. Money-grub could not 
answer one of them. But he is very fit for a legislator.' 

With which compliment to the Lower House we will 
close our extracts from this trenchant book. It exhibits 
Peacock at his highest, with ripened scholarship, polished 
style, and a varied and profound experience. 

As might be expected, the poetry of our author was 
deeply impregnated with his classical spirit. The vast 
weight of his learning, which he seemed to ' bear lightly 
as a flower,' was exhibited in numberless erudite allusions, 



142 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

whilst occasionally the foot-notes to his efforts were even 
more full of a ripe scholarship than the poems themselves. 
Naturally, his bent of mind led him, in his quest of sub- 
jects, into the realms of romance and mythology, with 
which he was in a remarkable degree famihar. One of 
his most successful poems is that entitled ' Rhododaphne, 
or the Thessalian Spell.' It is a poem which Coleridge 
might have written. Founded on the ascription of the 
power of magic to the being from whom it takes its name, 
the story is worked out with eminent skill and feeling. 
Anthemion, the flower of all Arcadia's youth, comes to 
the festival of Love, which was celebrated in honour of 
that deity every fifth year in the Temple of Love at 
Thespia, a town near the foot of Mount Helicon. The 
flowers he presents at the foot of the altar are suddenly 
blighted. This fills him with terror. He then hears 
himself addressed, and, looking up, beholds a maiden 
before him with more than mortal loveliness. She gives 
flowers to him, which are accepted at the altar, and so 
she passes out of sight. In the second canto he is made 
aware that the flower he has accepted is the fatal laurel- 
rose, and he is bade to seek the stream that laves the 
foot of the mountain, and there, calling on his Natal 
Genius, and with averted face, he is to cast the flower 
into the stream, looking not upon the running wave 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 143 

again. By this means the magic spell now over him will 
be dissolved. Immediately he has fulfilled the injunction 
he hears the cry of his beloved Callirrhoe, and is not 
proof against looking back ; he does so, but all becomes 
«till. The secret that the bright maiden who has be- 
witched him is Rhododaphne is revealed in the third 
canto, where she charges him with having thrown away 
the flower which she gave him. He pleads its disastrous 
nature ; at least so he was informed by a reverend seer, 
and he is thus forcibly rebuked in lines which bear a 
sting (and doubtless were intended to do so) for nine- 
teenth-century sophistry. 

* The world, oh youth ! deems many wise, 
Who dream at noon with waking eyes, 
While spectral fancy round them flings 
Phantoms of unexisting things ; 
Whose truth is lies, whose paths are error. 
Whose gods are fiends, whose heaven is terror.' 

The spell woven round Anthemion is made stronger by 
the maiden's kiss, which is to be poison to all lips but 
hers. He returns to his own Arcadian vale and meets 
his destined bride. She flies to meet him, her eyes 
imparting and reflecting pleasure, for, as the author 
beautifully expresses it, — 



144 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

'■ This is love's terrestrial treasure, 
That in participation lives, 
And evermore, the more it gives, 
Itself abounds in fuller measure.' 

But Anthemion's embrace proves, as predicted, the death 
of Callirrhoe, and maddened with despair the lover flies 
from the scene. Succeeding cantos are devoted to his 
wanderings, and to his meeting again with the magic 
maid of Thessaly. At length, for her impious spells, 
Rhododaphne is slain by the arrow of Uranian Love, 
and the marble palace in which she has been reclining 
with Anthemion is riven asunder. By her death the spell 
is removed from the latter, and once more he finds him- 
self in his native vale, where he meets the risen Callirrhoe, 
and the happy pair raise a m.arbie tomb to the dead 
Rhododaphne. 

Such is the outline of this poem, which has many 
poetic graces : it is not, however, impassioned, as lofty 
poetry should be, and therefore very high rank cannot be 
conceded to it. It contrasts favourably, nevertheless, 
with many modern attempts to render into verse ancient 
stories which would seem of themselves to suggest the 
loftiest inspiration. The poetry of Peacock is neither 
the poetry of sentimental namby-pambyism nor of burn- 
ing passion. If he does not glow with the fire of Shelley, 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 145 

he does not pall with the sickly maunderings of later 
nerveless versifiers, whose genius has had some difficulty 
in crawling through its long-clothes. While our author's 
verse is liquid and musical, it is never weak and faltering. 
He is able to endow his creations with some amount of 
life-breathing power. It can scarcely be said that he was 
happier in his poetry than his prose ; rather, indeed, 
must the reverse be admitted. His intellectual and 
dissecting strength was greater than his emotional. He 
knew, probably, that the general reader would take no 
delight in his verse ; but that mattered little to him ; he 
could give him none other — consequently all his work in 
this direction betrays rather the thinking than the feeling 
man. In only one of his volumes of verse has he dealt 
after the manner of versifiers generally. The effort was 
not successful. It was his first attempt in a more popular 
style and scope, which style he seems afterwards to 
have abandoned. The truth is that on ordinary topics 
he had nothing extraordinary to say. It was when he 
came to re-illume dead torches that his genius shone to 
advantage. One poem in the work to which we are 
referring, * Palmyra ' — and which gives its name to the 
volume — is, however, in spite of what we have said, 
a splendid ode upon the destruction of the magni- 
ficent Oriental city. The last stanza, an adjuration to 

L 



146 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

bow to the will of the Deity, is finely expressed. It 
reminds one forcibly of Campbell's 'Ode to the Last 
Man : '— 

' Bow thou to Him, for He is good. 

And loves the works His hands have made ; 
In earthy in air, in fire, in flood. 

His parent bounty shines displayed. 
Bow then to Him, for He is just, 
. Though mortals scan His ways in vain ; 
Repine not, children of the dust ! 

For He in mercy sends ye pain. 
Bow then to Him, for He is great, 
And was, ere Nature, Time, and Fate 

Began their mystic flight ; 
And still shall be when consummating flame 
Shall plimge this universal frame 

In everlasting night. 
Bow then to Him, the Lord of All, 
Whose nod bids empires rise and fall, 

Earth, heaven, and nature's Sire ! 
To Him, who, matchless and alone. 
Has fix'd in boundless space his throne, 
Unchanged, unchanging still, while worlds and suns expire ! ' 

Most of the other poems in this volume are very 
inferior, and produce the impression that the writer, after 
having communed with the gods, has descended to the 
language of the mannikins. A poem of a more ambitious 
description, entitled ' The Genius of the Thames,' besides 
exhibiting a considerable infusion of the lyrical spirit, 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 147 

breathes also of the patriotic. The pre-eminence of the 
noble river is demonstrated in many smooth, flowing 
lines, and the opportunity is seized to recapitulate all the 
old traditions in connection with it. The beliefs in 
tutelary genii are dwelt upon, and the contemplative 
mind of the author has free scope for exercise. Silvery, 
however, as the lines are, and beautiful frequently as are 
the thoughts which give substance to them, it is not a 
work likely to enhance the author's reputation in any 
considerable degree. It bears traces of the study of 
poets of the close of last centur)^, not the best models, 
one would think, for an author just opening on his 
career. The eye of the poet for natural scenery is just 
and true. Perhaps it is not sufficiently fresh. The 
student has stepped from his books into the open air, 
and his impressions are scholastic and polished. Legends 
of the Thames valley are touched with some amount of 
force, and the comparisons drawn between the state of 
Britain and the old monarchies, Babylonish and others, 
are vigorous and interesting. Altogether, it is just such 
work as to tempt a man to perform who had a high taste 
for poetic art, but it is not by any means a fair test or 
gauge of his powers. 

The same observations would very nearly apply to 
'The Philosophy of Melancholy,' a poem marked by 

L 2 



148 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

graceful fancy and many touches of true poetic feeling, 
but lacking in the higher imaginative power. It is im- 
possible to peruse it with anything but high pleasure, yet 
the judgment is tempered when we think what such 
masters of the art as Milton would have made of the 
same subject. A pensive attractiveness doubtless 
attached to these themes in the mind of the poet, but his 
capability of utterance was by no means commensurate 
with the fertility of his ideas. 

Susceptibility, then, or that extreme sensibility which 
permeates every avenue of the true poet's being, was 
deficient in Peacock, and in consequence he came short 
of the standard. We know the real singer when we meet 
with him. He is not one who is compelled to ransack 
the stores of recondite lore before he gives us the treasure 
we need. He is a man whose heart is turned out 
towards humanity — and, whether the king on the throne 
or -the beggar in the street be his theme, he is able to 
invest it with undying interest. He is a mirror upon 
which are reflected all the complex passions of human 
nature. He reads the secrets of humanity and of Nature 
as one would read the pages of a book, without faltering, 
and with a clear apprehension of their meaning and 
import. There is no need for him to go back into past 
ages to discover subjects for his muse : the records of 



THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK. 149 

the very lives by which he is surrounded furnish him with 
material as tragic as the death of Csesar. The gloom and 
the glory of his own time strike as deeply into his soul as 
do those of any past age. The great poet of every period 
has always been the man who was able to niterpret the 
human life which encompassed him, and to paint it as he 
beheld it. Realities are v/hat he achieves, and these are 
always recognised, transcending a thousand failures in 
attempting to revivify the beings of antiquity. In the 
sense, then, in which such a man as Burns, for instance, 
was a poet, Peacock was none at all. Impulsiveness 
was foreign to him. He had too much of the cynic and 
the critic in his composition to be possessed of the divine 
afflatus. His verse is ever correct and musical, not 
burning and overwhelming : it is like the silvery stream 
which meanders pleasantly through the meadows, and 
not the roaring mountain cataract, or the tempestuous 
waves which beat against the rock-bound shore. 

We have left ourselves no space to speak of Peacock's 
miscellaneous works, — his 'Paper Money Lyrics,' his 
translation of ' Gl' Ingannati,' a comedy performed at 
Siena, in 15 31, his 'Reminiscences and Correspondence 
with Shelley,' &c. This is the less to be regretted, how- 
ever, as these fugitive pieces are to be shortly collected, 



150 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

and republished with his more important works in a 
uniform and permanent edition.* 

Sufficient ground has, we trust, been shown for turning 
back to this too-long neglected author. With a chosen 
few he has ever been a favourite, but to the admirers of 
a vapid and invertebrate style he must necessarily remain 
an abomination. To glance at the mere list of works of 
fiction at the present day which seem to afford most 
delight to the general reader is a disheartening operation: 
it will not have been in vain if these observations on one 
of the most remarkable writers of several generations 
should induce, in however small a degree, a reaction. 
In all those respects in which an author is of permanent 
benefit to mankind the author of ' Headlong Hall ' is 
worthy of occupying an eminent position. His vast 
learning, his precise style, his great research, his bound- 
less sarcasm, his intense abhorrence of cant, are all so 
many claims upon our regard. With the ordinary 
novelists he has little in common ; in most respects 
he cannot be put into competition with them ; for, whilst 
he has many virtues which they do not possess, he ex- 
hibits few of their vices. 

^ Since the above -vvas written, as I have intimated in the Preface, 
the Edition referred to has been issued. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 



[NEW QUARTERLY MAGAZINE] 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

American genius is as yet in its youth. Its slumbering 
forces have not had time to develop themselves. A 
nation, like an individual, when first it becomes conscious 
that it possesses the precious boon called life, endeavours 
to gratify the selfish propensities of its existence, and 
from this stage moves on gradually to the manifestation 
of the higher intellectual and spiritual qualities. So 
progresses the Transatlantic mind, which has not yet 
culminated in the exhibition of genius of the first order. 
The shrewdness of the race has already passed into a 
proverb, and the world-wide reputation acquired in this 
respect has latterly been almost equalled by the fame 
attaching to its new school of humourists, who so singu- 
larly reflect in themselves all the angularities of the 
national character. In poetry, philosophy, and the 
drama, however, that which has yet been accomplished 
is mainly of a tentative character. The Transatlantic 
Milton, Bacon, and Shakspeare have yet to be bom. 
Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, Lowell, and Walt Whitman 



154 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

are the only planets which burn with a noticeable degree 
of brilliancy on the poetical horizon ; while of dramatists 
not one has yet arisen with a clear title to the world's 
regard. In philosophy, the name of Emerson at once 
occurs to the mind j but with all his excellences — and in 
some respects he is the most remarkable man America 
has yet produced — he is unable to stand alone. It is 
questionable whether the wodd would have heard of 
Emerson had it not first heard of Carlyle ; and in this 
country Emerson could not have occupied that con- 
spicuous position to which he can justly lay claim in his 
own country. In one important pursuit only can we 
cede to our Transatlantic brethren the possession of a 
class of thinkers large enough to be distinctive — and 
that is in theology. With all their shrewdness and 
great worldliness, there is a bent in the mind indubitably 
theological, and the result has been the appearance of 
such strong and earnest theologians as Jonathan 
Edwards, Channing, and Theodore Parker — names 
which deserve and obtain the profoundest respect on 
this side the water. 

The imaginative faculty is generally the last to reach 
its destined width and fulness, and nations have patiently 
to await its growth for centuries. It is like the oak, 
which beholds its fellow-trees of the forest grow old and 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 155 

die before it attains to perfection. When it has at length 
reached its full growth, it even then knows no perceptible 
decay, but remains with a nation as its most permeating 
and abiding influence. It is not surprising, therefore, to. 
find that in the literature of the imagination America 
still occupies but an inferior place. She has yet to cast 
her giant arms about her, to ascertain of what she is 
capable, to gauge her resources, and to consolidate her 
strength, before she arrives at that grand and profound 
calm which is necessary for the appearance of the great 
novelist and poet. As an earnest, nevertheless, of what 
she will yet accomplish in this direction, we have selected 
for consideration the writer whose genius is, perhaps, 
universally acknowledged to be the most striking and 
unique among his own countrymen, and wliose works 
w^ill, without doubt, at no distant date, be cherished as 
classics, just as we in England preserve men so dissimilar 
as Fielding and Goldsmith. 

The silentness with which genius frequently assimilates 
the stores of knowledge and experience was never more 
clearly exemplified than in the Hfe of Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne. The facts of his personal history are very sparse, 
and those which are known are not of any special 
import. He adds another example to the many, that 
those men who have exercised the most pemianent in- 



156 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

fluence over the human race have by no means been 
noisy and turbulent spirits, but just the reverse. Men of 
action are the waves which break boisterously upon the 
seashore : men of thought are the deep quiet under- 
currents which are the veritable ocean itself. Activity 
and enterprise are the fringes of time ; intellect, soul, 
spirit, is Time. The world lives by the throbs of this 
inner and unseen power. Yet, though it is of little con- 
sequence to know what an author has done outwardly, 
compared with what he has said, suffered, and felt, there 
is a genuine interest attaching to the life of any who 
have risen beyond the ordinary altitude, and occupied 
exalted niches in the temple of Fame. That interest 
finds its completest satisfaction when an author vouch- 
safes to explain to us the various mental processes 
through which he has passed before realising the product 
which has been of so much benefit to the species. We 
see, then, that not only is his work far in advance of the 
average intellect, but his volitions have been deeper and 
his aspirations proportionately higher. The apparent 
quietude of his life has been a season of really more 
rapid growth in thought and feeling than is the lot of the 
ordinary mortal. The man of genius has lived cease- 
lessly, not by fits and starts, and his life has been a 
constant series of intellectual and spiritual surprises, each 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 157 

achievement or revelation being but a landmark on that 
road to perfection which he travels with unwearied feet. 
When his individual experience is thus unfolded by him- 
self, and the inner recesses of his spirit laid bare, the 
life of the man of genius becomes a strong complemen- 
tary force and element to that of his work. 

On Independence Day — the fourth of July, 1804 — the 
day which we suppose of all others would be regarded 
by citizens of the United States as the most auspicious 
on which to make entry into this w^orld — Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne was born in the town of Salem, described as one 
of the most quaint centres of life in the colony of 
Massachusetts. The ancestors of the novelist were 
amongst those responsible for the persecution of the 
Quakers ; and one of them, Justice John Hawthorne, fre- 
quentl)^ passed sentence upon witches arraigned before 
him for their supposed familiarity with disembodied 
spirits. The Hawthorne family declined from a state of 
affluence and importance in the course of a century to 
one of comparative insignificance in the social scale; and 
w^e learn from Mr. H. A. Page's excellent memorials of 
Hawthorne that his more immediate ancestors ran on for 
generations in a long line of mariners and inconsiderable 
merchants. Prosperity forsook them, and he who was to 
shed the greatest lustre upon the name has given the fol- 



158 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

lowing description of his predecessors : * From father to 
son, for above a hundred years, they followed the sea ; 
a grey-headed shipmaster in each generation retiring 
from the quarter-deck to the homestead, while a boy of 
fourteen took the hereditary place before the mast, con- 
fronting the salt spray and the gale which had blustered 
against his sire and grandsire. The boy also, in due 
time, passed from the forecastle to the cabin, spent a 
tempestuous manhood, and returned from his world- 
wanderings to grow old and die, and mingle his dust 
with the natal earth.' The knowledge he gained of the 
strange passages in the lives of his ancestors, coupled 
with his inheritance of many of their traits, had a strong 
influence on the bent of Hawthorne's mind. His own 
nature was of a reflective and somewhat melancholy cast, 
and its bias was probably deepened by the life he spent 
with his mother after his father's death. Captain 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, a bold seaman, never returned 
from one of his long voyages ; and his widow, the future 
novelist's mother, who appears to have been a woman of 
considerable endowments, retired from the world with 
her two girls and only boy, and spent the remainder of 
her years in strict solitude. It is a well-ascertained fact 
that a great number of men who have in every age be- 
come distinguished in the world, inherited the mental 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 



159 



characteristics and constitution of their maternal parent, 
and Hawthorne affords another example of what, by 
many, is asserted to be a universal rule. We can readily 
imagine the kind of influence Mrs. Hawthorne would 
exercise upon her son's earlier years, with her strong 
intellect ; and when it is remembered that the facts and 
traditions respecting that town to which she had retired 
with her family were of the most thrilling and weird de- 
scription, we can almost see the mind of the son taking 
its tinges of wonder, melancholy, and pathos. In Salem 
was to be beheld the Witch-house, where old women had 
been condemned to death by those whose piety was as 
vindictive as it was severe ; and there was also to be 
seen the Gallows-hill, where the hangings took place, the 
restless sea moaning almost at the foot of the hill. 
Besides all these reminiscences, which must have had 
the strongest possible effect upon an impressionable imagi- 
nation, Hawthorne, at the early age of eight, was driven 
to seek much of his enjoyment in the quietude of home, 
in consequence of an accident that befell him in the 
cricket-field, which crippled him for some years. We 
are not surprised to find that the first book he purchased 
with his own money was Spenser's masterpiece, or that 
his greatest favourite in all literature was ' The Pilgrim's 
Progress.' The immortal * Dreamer ' of Bedford had a 



i6o POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

miniature successor in the dreamer of Salem ; and there 
was not a wide divergence, in some respects, in the 
character of the genius of the two men. Longing for a 
yet more secluded existence, Mrs. Hawthorne removed 
with her family to her own property near Sebago Lake, 
her son at this time being nearly eleven years of age. 
Here his opening mind acquired a still more sombre 
tone, though one not incompatible with the intensest 
enjoyment ; for speaking of this period in later years, he 
recalls all its pleasures, and concludes with the reflection 
that * everything is beautiful in youth, for all things are 
allowed to it' This had reference to the utter freedom 
from restraint which marked the life in Maine, when the 
glorious pine-woods, magnificent sunsets, and absolute 
solitude fed him with the true food of the poets. Three 
years of close communing which he then had with 
Nature were a valuable period to him, for he was able 
to assimilate, undisturbed by the world, all the riches 
which a seclusion in so eminently romantic a spgt could 
afford. At the age of sixteen (and after two years spent 
in Salem at the conclusion of his residence 'm Maine), 
Hav/thorne became a scholar of Bowdoin College, where 
he sufficiently distinguished himself, and had for com- 
panions Longfellow, Cheever, Horatio Bridge, and 
others. The closest tie of friendship he seems to have 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. i6i 

formed, however, was with Franklin Pierce, whom he 
afterwards defended from his traducers with that straight- 
forward manhness and courage which were pecuHar to 
him. Graduating with honours, Hawthorne left Bowdoin 
and returned to Salem in 1825, where he once more re- 
sumed strict habits of retirement. But what of literary 
projects meanwhile ? There are indications that he had 
not been idle for several years prior to this, and an 
anecdote is related of him to the effect that when he had 
carefully prepared a small volume of tales for the press he 
unhesitatingly burnt it, and resumed work again. How 
much the world might have been saved had but other 
young authors dealt thus kindly with the crude emana- 
tions of their intellect I The first work published by 
Hawthorne, and issued anonymously, was never acknow- 
ledged by him, though the reader is able to discover in 
it certain of the like singular powers which impressed 
his later work. One has remarked of this early romance, 
that 'it is a dim, dreamy tale, such as a Byron-struck 
youth of the time might have written, except for that 
startling self-possession of style and cold analysis of 
passion, rather than sympathy with it, which showed no 
imitation, but remarkable original power.' His heart, 
however, had not widened yet, to allow of its great 
sympathetic capacity having full sway. The immediate 

M 



i62 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

successors of this repudiated story were ' The Twice-told 
Tales,' of which we shall speak mth more fulness pre- 
sently. At this juncture, it will be sufficient to observe 
that two influences are distinctly traceable in them — 
that of the objects and the moods of nature upon a 
sensitive mind, and that of a strong introspective faculty. 
The criticism that would compare these stories to 
Brummell's failures we cannot understand. They are, in 
fact, no failures at all ; that is, when regarded in their 
proper light, and alone. An injustice is done to them 
when they are compared with the riper romances from 
the same hand, with which, of course, they will not bear 
comparison ; but, considered by themselves, they not 
only possess interest but cleverness, and a certain 
amount of intuition. They have interest as indicating 
the groove in which the young writer was hereafter to 
acquire his fame, and they are to his ultimate produc- 
tions what sketches are to completely elaborated pictures. 
Hawthorne once described himself as 'the most 
obscure man of letters in America,' and the definition — 
thanks to the slight amount of discernment possessed by 
the reading public — had the merit of being strictly 
accurate. His first essays before the world were not suc- 
cessful. Probably the total newness of his style repelled 
many, who did not care to dive for what was valuable in 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 163 

it, or who judged from a hasty perusal of one or two of 
his sketches that a hypochondriac had arisen in litera- 
ture. Some men — noble writers — go all through their 
lives with the recognition only of a very limited circle of 
admirers ; while others (of which class Hawthorne was 
one) spend many years in obscurity, though they even- 
tually obtain a wide celebrity. Unknown by society, 
Hawthorne wrote much in a serial form, and he had a 
short experience of editorship, which was as unsatis- 
factory as it was brief. It appears that in 1836 he com- 
menced editing the ' American Magazine of Useful 
Knowledge,' published at Boston, and for which he was 
to receive the not very munificent salary of six hundred 
dollars per year. Conscientious and something more, he 
kept on at his work, even after the proprietors became 
insolvent. The magazine was supposed to be ' illustrated 
in the best style,' but, as is too often the case with lavish 
promises, the reality was nearer the exact opposite. 
Combined with this disadvantage, Hawthorne had no 
contributors to the magazine except himself, and he 
wrote nearly the whole of it, filling up the interstices with 
extracts, the drudgery of selecting which was also 
personally performed. The issue of this could be only 
one thing, resignation;, and the editor took farewell of 
his readers. Very few events, however, are without 

M2 



i64 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

some useful or pleasant side, and Hawthorne's position 
as editor had the good effect of bringing his name before 
those who were likely to be of service to him. Accord- 
ingly, we find that partly through his magazine connec- 
tion he was able at length to get the appointment of 
collector at the Custom-house at Boston. The duties 
of this post he continued to discharge till 1841, when 
the revolving wheel of poHtical circumstances sent 
him down, and he was again stranded without an occu- 
pation. 

The next passage in his life is, perhaps, of all the 
most important and the most interesting. We refer to 
the part which he took in an enterprise regarded as 
quixotic by New York society, and which excited much 
comment and animadversion. Various are the stories 
which have been circulated respecting Brook Farm, the 
scene destined for the exhibition, in a concrete form, of 
theories which had been pretty extensively ridiculed in 
the abstract. This was neither more nor less than the 
establishment of a Socialist Community on the principles 
of Owen and Fourier. The originators of the idea in 
America were Dana, Ripley, and Pratt, though, as Mr. 
Moncure Conway points out in his lucid sketch of the 
movement, Emerson was largely responsible for exciting 
the feeling which afterwards found expression in the 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 165 

establishment of Brook Farm. With regard to the views 
of the individuals who introduced this new mode ot 
life, they were to the following effect : — ' They firmly 
held to the belief that the only thing needed for the 
grand transformation of society was, that human beings 
should be placed under new circumstances ; that they 
should live together on principles of commercial harmony 
instead of those of competition ; and that, by a combi- 
nation of material resources and labour, they should be 
liberated from drudgery, and gain more leisure for the 
cultivation of the intellectual and spiritual powers.' 
With every sympathy for the noble aspiration which 
breathes through all this, it was obvious that the time had 
not arrived for the realisation of such a transcendental 
project. The scheme, notwithstanding, drew together 
some of the finest spirits of America, including Dwight, 
W. H. Channmg, Dana, and the brothers Curtis ; whilst 
the occasional visitors included Theodore Parker, Emer- 
son, and Margaret Fuller. Hawthorne joined the move- 
ment soon after it began ; but his residence at Brook 
Farm gave rise to contradictory statements. Whether 
there was ever the same intense moral inspiration at the 
root of his desire to join the society which animated the 
distinguished people who were its real founders, is open 
to grave doubt. But, certainly, if he commenced with 



i66 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

such a feeling, he was afterwards partially disillusionised, 
for v/e find him writing as follows in September, 1841 : — 

' Really, I should judge it to be twenty years since I left 
Brook Farm, and I take this to be one proof that my life 
there was an unnatural and unsuitable, and therefore an un- 
real one. It already looks like a dream behind me. The 
real Me was never an associate with the Community ; there 
has been a spectral Appearance there, sounding the horn at 
daybreak, and milking the cows, and hoeing potatoes, and 
raking hay, toihng in the sun, and doing the honour to as- 
sume my name. But the spectre was not myself Never- 
theless, it is somewhat remarkable that my hands have, 
during the past summer, grown very brown and rough, inso- 
much that many people persist in believing that I, after all, 
was the aforesaid spectral horn-sounder, cow-milker, potato- 
hoer, and hay-raker. But such people do not know a reality 
from a shadow.' 

This is obviously language that would not be held by 
the writer towards any project for which he cherished a 
deep feeling. The fact seems to be, that Hawthorne 
was not permeated by such an enthusiasm, and he 
doubtless joined the Community mostly with a view to 
pursue the psychological studies which had so strange a 
fascination for him. Here was something entirely out of 
the common modes of life, brought close under his own 
observation, and which he felt afforded an opportunity 
for analysis that could not be passed over. As he re- 
marked, * I must observe, and think, and feel, and 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 167 

content myself with catching gHmpses of things which 
may be wrought out hereafter.' His residence accord- 
ingly, as a member of the Community, was entirely a 
tentative one, he being on the outlook to see whether he 
really had any call for that new and singular existence 
as far as in him lay, while penetrated by the spirit of the 
student of human nature rather than by that of the trans- 
cendentalist. Hawthorne did his share loyally towards 
making Brook Farm a success. Its founders were not 
more true and staunch than he, though working from 
different motives. Miss E. Peabody wrote an interesting 
sketch of the movement, from which it appears that 
commercial interests were by no means lost sight of. All 
who took in property received stock, together with a 
fixed interest thereon ; house or board was kept in 
common, as the members severally desired, at the cost 
of provisions purchased at wholesale or raised on the 
farm. All in the Community were to labour and to be 
paid at a certain rate, choosing their number of hours as 
well as their kind of work. They were to pay their 
board with the results of their labour, or the interest of 
their stock, and to purchase whatever they might require 
at cost price from the warehouses of the Community. 
All labour, whether bodily or mental, was to be paid for 
at the same rate of wages, and no one was to do bodily 



i68 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

work wholly. Intellectual improvement and social inter- 
course were not to be neglected, and the Community was 
also to traffic with the world at large. The members 
even went so far as to offer to sell education to as many 
young persons as could be domesticated in the families, 
and who would enter into the common life with their 
own children. If parents were too poor to pay, their 
children could be educated gratuitously, on the condition 
that they should work for the Community aftenvards. 
This programme seemed sound and liberal, and it was, 
in fact, neither more or less than the ordinary conditions 
of society considerably improved upon, and an air of 
poetry and romance given to the whole from the fact 
of the isolation of the Community from the rest of the 
world. But it was not carrying out thoroughly the 
principles of Robert Owen and Fourier. The Com- 
munity was for a time very successful; it owned upwards 
of two hundred acres of land, and at the close of two 
years had accumulated thirty thousand dollars. Various 
reasons are assigned for its failure, and one invidious 
critic affirms that had it not been brought to an end by 
other causes, 'the picnic of poets and lovely women' was 
in a fair way of being broken up through female rivalries. 
This statement is emphatically denied by another writer, 
whose facilities for coming to a right judgment are un- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 169 

questioned, so far as the outward circumstances of the 
Community were concerned. But even he has not gone 
deeply enough into the matter. He affirms that the 
causes of its faihire were purely economical : alleging 
the unsuitability of the spot for an experiment whose 
basis must be necessarily agricultural. His reason is 
insufficient, when we remember that for two years this 
same spot had proved very fruitful and well adapted 
to the end in view. Besides, it was competent for 
the Community to introduce into their sphere of 
labour all the mechanical improvements and appliaaces 
which were possessed by the outer world. The apologist 
for Brook Farm goes on to say that so far from its failure 
being a proof of the inherent weakness of the associative 
principle, he regarded the existence of the Community 
for so long a time, under very unfavourable circum- 
stances, as a demonstration of the great vitality there 
is in the principle. The real state of the case, 
however, appears to be that the nearer the Community 
approached that ideal condition desired by its most 
earnest promoters, the more clearly its impending failure 
became apparent. The attempted application of 
Fourier's principles closely, is believed to have been the 
cause of the decline of the movement. Hawthorne left 
it at this time, probably foreseeirg the beginning of the 



I70 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

end. Society has not yet attained to that perfection 
when it can be content with a common purse ; though 
we are far from alleging that the attempt to disregard 
the pecuniary relations of society was the real cause 
of the failure of Brook Farm. Our present concern 
Avith the Community, however, is of a far different 
nature from that of the mere anxiety to understand 
fully its fortunes and its vicissitudes. We know that 
the residence of a powerful novelist there led to the 
production of one of his finest works, and at the same 
time one of the most remarkable and beautiful fictions 
Avith which America has yet enriched literature. Not only 
was Hawthorne repaid for his associations with Brook 
Farm, but the world has been at least an equal gainer. 

Hawthorne's marriage to a lady of great personal 
attractions, mental and physical, to wit, Miss Sophia 
Peabody, took place in 1843. If the fervour of youth 
ever leaves some men, it may be expected to have 
left him at this period, for he had now arrived at the 
somewhat mature age of thirty-nine. He would seem to 
have been singularly free from all that care which 
generally besets the youthful Benedict, regarding his 
future prospects without any fear whatsoever, and not 
caring to draw gloomy drafts upon the Bank of Fate. 
He describes his mode of life as one of easy trust in 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 171 

Providence, affected only by the varieties of the weather; 
and his chief anxiety consisted in watching the progress 
of his vegetables. In the retirement of his own room, 
however, his brain must have been busy, for it was in the 
Old Manse of Concord, where he settled after his 
marriage, that there grew and gathered together those 
' Mosses ' which have made the Old Manse and its 
immediate vicinity one of the greenest spots on earth. 
One can imagine him rambling through the orchards or 
wandering by the river side in search of wild flowers, of 
which he was passionately fond, and which seemed to 
speak with far more natural voices to his heart than the 
human voices of the busy city. But this delicious poet- 
reverie could not last for ever ; however noble his 
dreamings, they must come to an end. The respon- 
sibilities of the condition upon which he had entered at 
length made themselves felt, and he roused himself for 
mental work, writing in the Old Manse many books 
which satisfied the public taste. Nor was he deprived 
of congenial society when he chose to enjoy it, for 
within easy distance lived Emerson, Longfellow, Thoreau, 
and others, who thoroughly comprehended his nature, 
and with whom he could feel himself en raJ>port. In- 
deed, when this condition could not be attained with 
those into whose society he happened to be cast, Haw- 



172 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

thorne was of all men the most miserable ; never exhibit- 
ing his chagrin, however, because of the great gentleness 
of his nature. An anecdote is related of Hawthorne by 
his friend Curtis which is too admirable to be passed 
over, as it affords not only a glimpse of the former's 
personal appearance, but of that strange demeanour for 
which he was known, and which was always respected 
and understood. The occasion was an aesthetic tea 
at Emerson's, during the cold winter months, with a 
cheerful fire blazing upon the hearth. The narrator 
proceeds : — 

' There were various men and women of note assembled ; 
and I, who listened attentively to all the fine things that were 
said, was for some time scarcely aware of a man who sat 
upon the edge of the circle, a little withdrawn, his head 
slightly thrown forward upon his breast, and his black eyes 
clearly burning under his black brow As I drifted down 
the stream of talk, this person, who sat silent as a shadow, 
looked to me as Webster miight have looked had he been a 
poet — a kind of poetic Webster. He rose and walkea to the 
window, and stood there quietly for a long time, watching 
the dead white landscape. No appeal was made to him ; 
nobody looked after him : the conversation flowed steadily 
on, as if everyone understood that his silence was to be re- 
spected. It was the same thing at table. In vain the silent 
man imbibed gesthetic tea. Whatever fancies it inspired did 
not flower at his lips. But there was a light in his eye 
which assured me nothing w^as lost. So supreme was his 
silence, that it presently engrossed me to the exclusion of 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 173 

everything else. There was very brilliant discourse ,: but 
this silence was much more poetic and fascinating. Fine 
things were said by the philosophers : but much finer things 
were implied by the dumbness of this gentleman with heavy 
brows and black hair. When he presently rose and went, 
Emerson, with the slow, wise smile that breaks over his 
face, like day over the sky, said, " Hawthorne rides well his 
horse of the night." ' 

Verily ! this man was after Carlyle's own heart ! For 
does not the Chelsea philosopher regard himself as the 
Apostle of Silence, and declare that the dumbness of a 
great portion of humanity would be for the infinite good of 
the rest ? 

From the garden of the Old Manse could be seen 
the monument of a battle fought during the War of 
Independence, and the occupant of the Manse has left 
upon record how this fact, and the traditions associated 
with the neighbourhood generally, strongly affected him. 
One story was to the following efi"ect: — During the noise 
of battle which agitated the district, a servant of the 
clergyman who formerly occupied the Manse, ran from 
his work across the intervening field to see what was 
going forward. The British had retreated, and the boy, 
w^io had a battle-axe in his hand, found two soldiers 
lying upon the ground. One was a corpse, but as the 
New Endander came near, tlie other Briton raised him- 



174 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

self painfully upon his hands and knees and gave a 
ghastly stare into his face. ' The boy — it must have 
been a nervous impulse, without purpose, without 
thought, and betokening a sensitive, impressible nature 
rather than a hardened one — the boy upHfted his axe, 
and dealt the wounded soldier a fierce and fatal blow 
upon the head.' Hawthorne turned over this melan- 
choly incident repeatedly, following the miserable youth 
by a mental process through his subsequent career, and 
wondering to what depth his soul was tortured by the 
blood-stain so irresistibly, but perhaps not very crimi- 
nally, incurred. Many years elapsed before the story 
was elaborated in the pages of the novelist, but it was 
not to be expected that so graphic a detail could remain 
finally neglected. 

From the Old Manse, Hawthorne went to Salem, 
having been appointed surveyor of the port there by 
Mr. Bancroft. In less than a year after he had entered 
upon his new duties, was completed the first sketch of 
the most famous work by which his name is remem- 
bered ; yet, strange to say, the author of ' The Scarlet 
Letter ' was almost indifferent to his own handiwork, and 
showed no desire for its production. Fortunately, the 
insight of inferior men was too keen to allow of this ex- 
traordinary romance being lost. We behold in it the 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 175 

greatest embodiment of remorse ever achieved. Terrible 
in its gloom, the spirit of the reader asks again and 
again for some relief. Even the writer of it had expe- 
rienced the same feeling, but 'found it impossible to 
relieve the shadow of the story with so much light as he 
would gladly have thrown in.' This unmatched story 
having been written, Hawthorne found himself yet once 
more subjected to change. Losing his place as Custom- 
house officer after three years' service, he retired to 
Lenox, where his life seems to have been of a rather 
more genial character than hitherto. His compositions 
did not stand still either; for in addition to the 'Wonder 
Book,' and 'The House of the Seven Gables,' he planned 
the novel based on his experiences amongst the Commu- 
nity of Brook Farm. Matters went on calmly till 185 1, 
when he had an attack of illness which incapacitated him 
from intellectual exertion, and as the result of which he 
again went to Concord to reside. Here he lived for two 
years, till in 1853 he was appointed United States 
Consul at Liverpool. His five years in England were 
very pleasant, and many dear friends were made during 
that period ; while he also found much to satisfy his 
tastes in the quaint and venerable nooks and buildings 
with which the old country abounds. In 1858 he quitted 
England and went to reside in Italy, and one of his 



176 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

later works well exhibits the marvellous faculty he pos- 
sessed of extracting all that was best from the different 
human spheres in which it was his lot to be cast. He 
returned to America in i860, and although he occasion- 
ally devoted himself to literary work, the illness of 
certain members of his household, coupled with various 
other causes, greatly impeded his operations. Four 
years more, and the end of his career was touched in the 
town of Plymouth, New Hampshire. Not a little sin- 
gular is it that his oft-expressed wish to die suddenly was 
granted, and the exact time of his passing away was 
unknown, for no spasm of pain attracted the attention of 
those who were with him in his last hours. 

The growth of the modern novel has been marked by 
many changes and developments, but it may be said 
that its psychological interest was first exhibited in a very 
high degree by Havvlhorne. His deep study of the soul 
had scarcely been equalled before by writers of fiction. 
His stories do not of course display all the gifts which 
we witness in profusion in such men as Fielding and 
Scott; but in their deep concentration of thought upon 
the motives and the spirit of man, they stand almost 
alone. Examining now these works a little more closely, 
there comes first that early and disjointed collection, 
entitled 'Twice-told Tales.' They possess several points 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. i-jy 

of attractiveness, first among which is that they are the 
blossoms of that tree which afterwards yielded such rich 
fruit. We find here in the germ those special qualities 
which finally asserted themselves with great prominence. 
As they severally appeared they excited little or no 
interest amongst their author's countrymen ; but he has 
since been amply justified for their republication. They 
undoubtedly demonstrate, even in embryo, a strange 
capacity for the perception and illustration of lofty spi- 
ritual truths. Through the framework of the sketch is 
to be seen the moving of a restless soul. Hawthorne 
was always anxious to have it understood that he was 
never drawing character as it had existed in real life, but 
the fact seems to be unquestionable that he did discover 
and use types by which he was surrounded. Whether 
consciously or unconsciously it matters not, but the 
result is there — the characters have been reproduced, 
though that was not the chief end the author had in 
view. A fair description is given of these Tales by the 
writer himself, when he says : — ' They have the pale tint 
of flowers that blossomed in too retired a shade, the 
coolness of a meditative habit, which diftuses itself 
through the feeling and observation of every sketch. 
Instead of passion, there is sentiment j and even in what 
purport to be pictures of actual life, we have allegory, 

N 



178 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

not always so warmly dressed in its habiliments of flesh 
and blood as to be taken into the reader's mind without 
a shiver.' Those who have read the sketches will attest 
the truth of these observations ; but they will scarcely be 
able to agree with the succeeding remarks, that ' Whether 
from lack of power, or from an unconquerable reserve, 
the author's touches have often an effect of tameness : 
the merriest man can hardly contrive to laugh at his 
broadest humour ; the tenderest woman, one would 
suppose, will hardly shed warm tears at his deepest 
pathos. The book, if you would see anything in it, 
requires to be read in the clear, brown twilight atmo- 
sphere in which it was written ; if opened in the sunshine 
it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume of blank 
pages.' Hawthorne's self-depreciation and exclusive 
habits of thought led him to be a little unjust here to his 
readers, who are able to discover something of the moral 
he .would enforce in whatever mood his stories are read. 
What a striking and powerful sketch is that of ' The 
Minister's Black Veil,' where the subject of it is made to 
go about the world shrouded, as a symbol that man is 
always in a veiled condition before his God and his 
fellow- man. It is founded on the original fact in con- 
nection with a clergyman of New York, who had the 
misfortune in youth to kill accidentally a beloved friend, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. ly^ 

and who from that time forth kept religiously to the 
resolve of hiding his face from men. One can see at a 
glance how so singular a subject would commend itself 
to Hawthorne, and he has absolutely made us realise the 
wretched being in flesh and blood. Another sketch, 
permeated, this time, with a love for humanity, and 
showing how it can overcome all the prejudices of tribes 
and people, is that where the Puritans take in the gentle 
outcast boy, and are made to suffer for it in consequence. 
Hawthorne well rebukes religious bigotry, and makes it 
appear the loathsome thing it is. * A Rill from the Towti 
Pump ' is a well-known paper of entirely another stamp 
and infused with a rich humour which is not general 
amongst the sketches. We cannot but smile at the 
conceit which describes the pump as the chief person of 
the municipality, and also as a most admirable pattern 
to its brother officers for the steady and impartial dis- 
charge of its business, and the constancy with which it 
stands to its post in all weathers. The search for the 
* Great Carbuncle ' has much amusement, notwith- 
standing that it is open to the charge of wild extrava- 
gance. This mystery of the White Mountains is an ex- 
cellent illustration of the way in which Hawthorne de- 
lighted to mingle facts and impossible incidents together. 



i8o POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

In the search for that which will never be discovered 
he starts persons whom he has himself met, and all the 
differing specimens of humanity which are found in the 
tale Y>'ere seen in actual life by the writer. His alle- 
gorical genius is w-ell displayed, for the reader is irre- 
sistibly forced to arrive at the conclusion that he is 
endeavouring to depict as a second and hidden purpose 
the search of mankind after the perfect good — which is 
still in existence somewhere, but whose secret has not 
yet been attained by man. In a slight sketch, headed 
'■ The Prophetic Pictures/ the author asks, ' Could the 
result of one or of all our deeds be shadowed forth or 
set before us, some would call it Fate, and hurry onward, 
others be swept along by their passionate desires, and 
none be turned aside by the prophetic pictures.' So 
intent is man upon attaining the object of his pursuit. 
We cannot linger long over this repertory of interesting, 
and in numbers of cases, thrilling stories — all bearing 
upon them a warranty of good. Some of them are weird, 
like ' The Snow Image,' some beautiful, and some tragic. 
So far from being without a purpose, all seem to bristle 
with lessons. We can say of each page that ' thoughts 
and fancies gleam forth upon it, like stars at twilight, or 
like violets in May ; ' but unlike those fading objects in 
nature, the Hght and the bloom remain. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. iSi 

Contrary, perhaps, to the general verdict^ we are 
ahiiost impelled to the conclusion that the most perfect 
work left by Hawthorne is the ' Blithedale Romance.' 
This is the novel already alluded to as being founded 
upon his experiences at Brook Farm, and while it does 
not exhibit such a centralisation of passion in the indi- 
vidual as is the case with the ' Scarlet Letter,' it manifests 
qualities which are absent in the latter. Its thought and 
language are superior, and as regards composition alone, 
it may be pronounced a perfect work. The masterpiece 
of Oliver Goldsmith is brought to mind whilst reading it, 
though the two novels differ in most aspects as vridely 
as possible. In each, however, there is a charming 
style, whose easy flow has never been excelled, while in 
Hawthorne's story there is a poetic beauty which is 
not to be found in the ' Vicar of Wakefield.' The draw- 
ing of characters is also very satisfactory. The dj'aniatis 
persojice are few in number, but all are realised with 
extraordinary vividness. In Miles Coverdale is beheld 
the novelist himself, and Hawthorne's peculiarities are 
touched off with a free and unbiassed hand. There is 
the same half shy, retiring demeanour which charac- 
terised the original, and which prevented Coverdale from 
being that hearty member of the Community which his 
friends desired. Hollingsworth is an individual of great 



i82 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

power, and yet we are divided in mind as to whether he 
most attracts or repels us. Full justice is, however, 
done to his remarkable force of character, which stirred 
in Zenobia so profound an admiration and love for him. 
The gentle Priscilla, fragile and beautiful as a daisy, 
adds to the charms of the society at Blithedale ; a per- 
fect contrast, in her quietude and simplicity, to Zenobia 
herself, who brings to mind the famous queen of old 
whose name she bore. The novelist has thrown a tinge 
of the deepest poetry, sad, and yet enthralling, round his 
w^hole narrative. Where would have been its power had 
he only given us but a dry record of the daily life at 
Brook Farm? He keeps himself judicially aloof from 
expressing an opinion upon those principles for whose 
practical working the Community was instituted, and 
simply goes thence because something is to be gained, 
he imagines, by travelling out of the beaten track of the 
novelist. He asserts, moreover, that his characters are 
entirely fictitious, but the world generally will only 
regard them so in the same light that it regards a very 
faithful portrait — the fictitious representation of the real 
man. Identification is clear and palpable with several 
of the leading individuals in the story, and his sister-in- 
law has admitted the fact that his creations have not 
entirel}- sprung from the imagination. But this fact is 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 183 

one of little moment in connection with the story. It is " 
given to us — in what form we care not — to be a delight 
to every succeeding generation. After the poetic halo 
which envelops it, we notice the philosophy of the 
romance, which gleams out in detached sentences preg- 
nant with deep allusion or ripe wisdom. How truly 
the author is led on to speak of the better Hfe in man, 
in connection wit! a the project which forms the basis of 
his narrative ! ' The greatest obstacle to being heroic,' 
he says, ' is the doubt whether one may not be going to 
prove one's self a fool ; the truest heroism is to resist the 
doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it 
ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed.' Never 
can it be said that Hawthorne casts a shadow over en- 
thusiasm. Often, doubtless, in his own mind he had 
asked the question which has puzzled most thinking men 
at some period of their lives, ad bono ? but on no occa- 
sion does he pour contempt either upon the ardour of 
youth, or upon those deep feelings and aspirations which 
survive youth, as in Hollingsworth's case, but which 
have not the remotest chance of attaining their ends. 
His own eye is too clear in gauging the impossible 
barriers which intervene between human desire and per- 
fect fruition ; and to this, we could almost believe, is to 
be attributed the sadness which pervades all that he has 



i84 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

done. Come whatever else may, he must at any rate 
be true to his genius ; and here Hes partially the secret 
why he laboured for so many years before he obtained 
the popular ear. He had only the truth to tell, and it is 
so difficulc for that., at any time, to make way, unless 
assisted by many brilliant and striking flashes of false- 
hood. To Zenobia, that magnificent creature, from 
whom came an influence ' such as we might suppose to 
come from Eve when she was just made,' he awards the 
most miserable lot of all. With so great a capacity for 
reverencing all that is grand and noble in man, she sees 
the love of Hollingsworth — who meets every requirement 
of her great and ardent nature — poured upon the little 
maiden who trembles in her glance, and who appears 
no more than a drop of rain sparkling in the sun. What 
can she do when she fails of attainment ? Even the 
great purposes for which she joined the Community pale 
into insignificance compared with the intensity of her 
unrequited passion. She misses that union for which 
Nature evidently destined her, and without which she 
cannot live and breathe. All the paraphernalia of phi- 
lanthropy fade away into nothingness ; she discovers that 
life, after all, cannot be transformed into a common- 
wealth ; it is made up of the union of two, and not of a 
hundred ; her soul yearns for that portion of itself with- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 185 

out which she cannot be happy. Despair seizes upon 
her spirit, and the tragedy of existence is completed by 
that plunge into the dark waters which alone can bring 
oblivion to her woes. The whole story is mournful and 
thrilling to the last degree, and we know not whom 
to pity most, the beautiful woman who so miserably 
perishes, or the man Hollingsworth who so miserably 
survives. In the latter, Hawthorne says he sees ' an 
exemplification of the most awful truth in Bunyan's book 
of such — from the very gate of heaven there is a byeway 
to the pit ! ' Rarely does the noveHst moralise in his 
stories, but he is perforce compelled to do this when 
brought face to face with the final wrack and ruin which 
overtakes Blithedale and its little company. ' The moral 
which presents itself to my reflections ' (the author is 
speaking) ' as drawn from Hollingsworth's character and 
errors, is simply this — that, admitting what is called 
philanthropy, when adopted as a profession, to be often 
useful by its energetic impulse to society at large, it is 
perilous to the individual whose ruling passion, in one 
exclusive channel, it thus becomes. It ruins, or is fear- 
fully apt to ruin, the heart, the rich juices of which God 
never meant should be pressed violently out, and dis- 
pelled into alcoholic liquor, by an unnatural process, but 
should render life sweet, bland, and gently beneficent, 



i86 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

and insensibly influence other hearts and other lives to 
the same blessedness.' And upon the lines indicated 
in this deliverance, the ' Blithedale Romance ' is con- 
structed. Formulated, mapped-out benevolence was 
clearly a thing for which Hawthorne had little sym- 
pathy; and there are certainly many nobler modes of 
rendering the philanthropic sentiment concrete than 
by self-imposed exclusion from the bulk of the human 
species. 

The two forms of genius, the subjective and the ob- 
jective, were blended in Hawthorne, the former, never- 
theless, greatly predominating. A fine example of the 
two styles combined is to be found in the ' House of the 
Seven Gables.' This romance possesses an interest from 
its general excellence rather than from any definite 
distinctive trait of character or directness of purpose. 
Yet the novelist had a particular end in view in the 
construction of the story, namely, to show the evil con- 
sequences which are entailed through the commission of 
error or crime. He himself admits that he would feel it 
a great gratification if the narrative should impress upon 
others the folly of accumulating golden gains in order 
that they should descend to posterity as an incubus and 
a snare. But in a story like this, although the moral 
cannot be forgotten or utterly lost sight of, it is relegated 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 187 

to a secondary position. Moral truths are to be picked 
out of novels as the reader passes along, but they should 
never be so prominent as to obstruct the view, and shut 
out those artistic merits without which any novel must 
be worthless. Picturesqueness is eminently the charac- 
teristic of the history of the old Pyncheon family, and 
additional interest is created through its semi-legendary 
character. The writer has traversed backwards for some 
generations, and given a present-day interest to a bygone 
age and romance. We can well understand that it cost 
Hawthorne more labour than most of his other stories. 
He was deeply conscious of the fact that he had under- 
taken to bear a sad burden, and strenuously endeavoured 
to lighten the shadows here and there. Not very suc- 
cessful, however, was he in this, and the narrative stands 
as another tomb of dead hopes, like so many builded by 
the hand of this melancholy genius. His fondness for 
the out-of-the-way, the grotesque, and the abnormal, is 
appeased a little by the introduction of the mesmerist 
element into the composition, which further serves to 
show that he was always abreast with what was going on 
in science and the world. The critic is almost deprived 
of his work in regard to Hawthorne, from the fact, un- 
usual with authors, that he has left behind him his own 
opinions upon almost every work that he has written. 



1 88 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

The judgmerxt, for instance, that we will venture to say 
any careful reader would have passed upon this v\'ork of 
the ' House of the Seven Gables,' viz., that in parts it is 
finished with all the minuteness of a Dutch picture, has 
been anticipated by the brain which conceived it ; so 
that there is little left to do, except to admire his ma- 
nipulation. The great difficulty which he experienced, 
of avoiding too close and careful an analysis of the 
human soul in its more sombre aspects, has been par- 
tially, but not altogether surmounted. Phoebe Pyncheon, 
however, gleams like a ray of the summer sun across the 
dark pages of the story. She is a bright, loveable, and 
beautiful creation, elaborated with softness and tender- 
ness. jAs a sweet poem lingers in the brain, and its 
undying- music is ever present with us, so do such cha- 
racters as this leave an impression on the memory and 
the heart. As the author says, her ' natural tunefulness 
made Phcebe seem like a bird in a shadowy tree ; or 
conveyed the idea that the stream of life warbled through 
her heart as a brook sometimes warbled through a 
pleasant little dell. It betokened the cheeriness of an 
active temperament, finding joy in its activity, and there- 
fore rendering it beautiful ; it was a New England trait — 
the stern old stuff of Puritanism, with a gold thread in 
the web.' And yet this girl, of whom her uncle said he 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 189 

' never knew a human creature do her work so much hke 
one of God's angels as this child Phoebe does,' found the 
one great happiness of her life in being a sacrifice for 
others. She is a noble moral type, as near the perfection 
of human nature, in her utter absence of selfishness, as it 
is possible to conceive. Before we part from her, we 
ought not to omit giving the author's description of 
her, both on account of its being a fair specimen of 
his painting of individuals, and for the portrait's own 
sake : — 

' Out of New England it would be impossible to meet 
with a person combining so many ladylike attributes with 
so many others that form no necessary (if compatible) part 
of the character. She shocked no canon of taste ; she was 
admirably in keeping with herself, and never jarred against 
surrounding circumstances. Her figure, to be sure, so small 
as to be almost childlike, and so elastic that motion seemed as 
easy, or easier, to it than rest, would hardly have suited one's 
idea of a countess. Neither did her face, with the brown 
ringlets on either side, and the slightly piquant nose, and the 
wholesome bloom, the clear shade of tan, and the half-a- 
dozen freckles — friendly remembrancers of the April sun and 
breeze — precisely give us a right to call her beautiful. But 
there was both lustre and depth in her eyes. She was very 
pretty, as graceful as a bird, and much in the same way ; as 
pleasant about the house as a gleam of sunshine falling on 
the floor through a shadow of twinkling leaves, or as a ray of 
firelight that dances on the wall, while evening is drawing 
nigh. Instead of discussing her claim to rank amongst 



I go POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

ladies, it would be preferable to regard Phcebe as the example 
of feminine grace and availability combined, in a state of 
society, if there were any such, where ladies did not exist. 
There it should be woman's office to move in the midst of 
practical affairs, and to gild them all, the very homeliest, 
with an atmosphere of loveliness and joy.' 

But this is not the only portrait drawn with realistic 
power. Those of Hephzibah and Judge Pyncheon are 
superior to it in force if inferior in delicacy. That pas- 
sage in which the stirrings of conscience are revealed in 
the Judge, is instinct with energy ; whilst the author's 
own delineation of the miserable soul tinged with blood — 
and like a pool of stagnant water, foul with many im- 
purities, beneath the show of a marble palace — is amongst 
the most graphic passages in this branch of literature. 
The story itself, as we have seen, is concerned with retri- 
bution — retribution after long years. A Colonel Pyn- 
cheon had sought and accomplished the destruction of 
one Matthew Maule, who was executed for the crime of 
witchcraft. While he had the halter about his neck, and 
just before the moment of execution, Maule addressed 
the Colonel, who stood calmly gazing upon the scene, in 
words which were preserved through history, as well as 
fireside tradition: ' God,' he said, *will give him blood 
to drink ! ' The deed apparently dies, but in Judge 
Pyncheon the full results are borne. That gross, sensual. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 191 

villainous life, is the answer to the original sin — the re- 
verberation which comes from Heaven's gate to assure 
man that acts which seem to bear no consequences in 
their dark folds, yield, in the far-off time, their black and 
bitter fruit. In Pyncheon's fearful death is that percep- 
tible reckoning for former deeds which the eye of man is 
not always able to trace. 

We pass from this really wonderful work to pause 
before that with which Hawthorne's name has been im- 
mortally associated. * The Scarlet Letter ' has been not 
inaptly described as ' the great New England epic' In 
the absence of any work of stupendous genius in America, 
this definition may well be accepted ; it has no equal, 
either in Transatlantic poetry or prose, for its dramatic 
strength. For the accident of its form, which is very 
striking, we are indebted to Hawthorne's stay at Boston. 
Not without significance to mankind was his discharge of 
the ordinary duties of the Custom-house officer. It is 
related that one day, while searching among the old re- 
cords of the Custom-house, he lighted upon a sentence 
decreeing that a woman convicted of adultery should 
stand on the Meeting-house steps with the letter A 
marked upon her breast. The problem how to deal with 
sin, in the shape of a romance, is supposed to have then 
flashed upon him in full artistic form ; and the friend who 



192 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

was beside him at the moment very shrewdly remarked, 
* We shall hear of the letter A again.' Never, perhaps, 
was so powerful a story constructed out of materials so 
slight. The one prominent object of the writer seems to 
burn through every line, even when he has apparently 
no thought of its doing so. That great trait of Haw- 
thorne's, his diving into the recesses of the human heart, 
and laying it bare to the gaze of the world, finds here its 
full expression. And one lesson, which seems to have 
been missed hitherto in connection with the novel, is this, 
that the author intended by it to illustrate and enforce 
his belief in Providence. For whatever may have been 
the case as regards man, his faith in the Deity was strong 
enough. Not in vain is the burden laid upon poor 
Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. They are to 
suffer here and to expiate their offence, but mercy is to 
be granted to them hereafter — that mercy which the 
severe, so-called Christian code refused them on earth. 
Such, we think, is the great moral Hawthorne had in 
view. Is it possible ever to erasQ from the memory the 
scene upon the scaffold, where, the minister who has suf- 
fered years of torture for his sin, has at length courage 
given him to make known his guilt and to bear the 
punishment ? ' God is merciful ! ' he cried. ' Let me 
now do the will which He hath made plain before my 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 193 

sight. For, Hester, I am a dying man, so let me make 
haste to take my shame upon me.' Then, addressing 
the people of New England in solemn and majestic 
tones, he made known the burden of his woe. He iden- 
tified himself as the one sinner of the world. The scarlet 
letter of cloth which Hester wore was more terribly re- 
presented in him, for years of remorse had printed it in 
blood upon his own breast, and it was also reproduced 
on his very heart But let the author give the final 
words which passed between the clergyman and his 
deeply-wronged Hester — words which set forth Haw- 
thorne's own view of the expiation of the long past 
crime : — 

' " Shall we not meet again ? ^' whispered she, bending her 
face down close to his. " Shall we not spend our immortal 
life together ! Surely, surely, we have ransomed one 
another with all this woe ! Thou lookest far into eternity 
with those bright, dying eyes. Then tell me what thou 
seest ! " 

' " Hush ! Hester, hush ! " said he, with tremulous solem- 
nity. " The lav/ we broke — the sin here so awfully revealed ! 
Let these alone be in thy thoughts, I fear ! I fear ! It 
may be, that, when we forgot our God — when we violated 
our reverence for each other's soul — it was thenceforth vain 
to hope that we could meet hereafter in an everlasting and 
pure reunion. God knows ; and He is merciful! He hath 
proved his mercy most of all in my afflictions. By giving 
me this burning torture to bear upon my breast ! By send- 

o 



194 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

ing yonder dark and terrible old man to keep the torture 
always at red heat ! By bringing me hither to die this death 
of triumphant ignominy before the people ! Had either of 
these agonies been wanting, I had been lost for ever ! 
Praised be His name ! His will be done. Farewell ! " ' 

Thus is taught the moral that to be true is worth 
more than life ; and collaterally with this is exemplified 
in Roger Chillingworth the folly of the passion of re- 
venge. Little did he imagine that by the exhibition of a 
sublime courage and virtue Arthur Dimmesdale would 
escape him at the last, and leave him to gnash his teeth, 
a disappointed man, with such a glance as he had never 
before taken into the contemptible depths of his own 
nature. Like the foul and noxious weed, he was up- 
rooted from his very base, and cast forth to encounter 
the opprobrium of the world. 

In other respects the romance is noteworthy. Be- 
sides its passion we have its beauty. The description of 
the Custom-house is written with a minute and delicate 
pencil, no strokes, however small, being omitted, which 
could add to the perfection of the picture. Occasionally, 
there is a humourous touch in the introduction, as when 
he slyly informs us that ' neither the front nor the back 
entrance of the Custom-house opens on the road to 
Paradise,' How delightful is that touch of poetry in 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 195 

which he refers to the wild rose-bush at the door of the 
prison, which seemed to assure the prisoner that the deep 
heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him ! The 
author's fondness for allegory comes out even here, when 
he goes on to observe — ' This rose-bush, by a strange 
chance, has been kept alive in history ; but whether it 
had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so 
long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks which 
originally overshadowed it, or whether, as there is fair 
authority for believing, it had sprung up under the foot- 
steps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she entered the 
prison door, — we shall not take upon ourselves to deter- 
mine. Finding it so directly on the threshold of our 
narrative, which is now about to issue from that in- 
auspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than 
pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader. It 
may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral 
blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the 
darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow.' 
But the fragrance of the rose is scarcely distinguishable 
as the narrative of sad import proceeds. Surely never 
was the human spirit so put upon the rack as in these 
pages ; it suffers torture till the final moment which we 
have rehearsed. The romance is a monograph of anguish. 
In its deep, utter, and absorbing psychological interest '\t 



196 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

stands without a peer. The beauty of Hester, and the 
angelic sweetness and purity of httle Pearl, are only 
streaks of light which, flashing across the darkness, serve 
to show the abysses of that darkness. The hell of human 
suffering was never more accurately gauged, and the 
thunders of conscience never reverberated with more 
terrific fury and power. 

Our purpose is not to consider Hawthorne's works in 
strict chronological order, nor indeed is it our intention 
to review them all specifically. Many of his slighter 
sketches,"though all tinged with the same spirit as his 
larger stories, afford little scope for saying more than this 
in reference to them. The ' Mosses from an Old Manse' 
are valuable as indicating the class of subjects for which 
he had an affection. In the introduction the writer 
seems to be filled with a more cheerful spirit than usually 
animates him, though it is a great mistake to jump at the 
conclusion, as some have done, that Hawthorne was a 
gloomy man. Behind all that power of dissection which 
he possessed, and past the shadow which falls across his 
works, was a trustful spirit — one which never let loose 
the anchor of faith. ' Oh, perfect day I ' he exclaims on 
one occasion, ' Oh, beautiful world ! Oh, beneficent 
God ! It is the promise of a blessed eternity ! for our 
Creator would never have made such lovely days, and 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 197 

have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and 
beyond all thoughts, unless we were meant to be im- 
mortal. This sunshine is the golden pledge thereof. It 
beams through the gates of Paradise, and shows us 
glimpses far inward.' Strong, therefore, it will be seen, 
w^as the religious instinct in Hawthorne. Looking at his 
Note-book^ we get some insight into his method, which 
is here beheld in its rough and early stage. His first 
process is to seize upon the local colouring, or upon the 
naked passion. This is slightly elaborated in the short 
sketches, as, for instance, the ' Mosses,' where, neverthe- 
less, he gets httle further than just clothing the simple 
leading ideas^ and it is perfected in his longest stories, 
where art has been called in to give all possible aid to 
nature. The germs of a hundred stories could be found 
in a few sentences culled from his Note-books. ' Our 
Old Home ' and the brief romances which have been 
collected since his death, call for little special mention, 
for the reasons, first, that the former work has so long 
been known to Englishmen, and, secondly, that the new 
stories are not distinguished for their strength, though 
they are very characteristic of the writer's manner. 

' Transformation,' however, is a novel which cannot 
be thus passed over. The idea of Donatello, the Faun- 
like man, which gives so singular an interest to this work, 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



was most probably derived by Hawthorne from the de- 
tails of the examination of Byron's dead body given by 
Trelawney^ in his ' Recollections of Byron and Shelley.' 
* I asked Fletcher,' says the author, '■ to bring me a glass 
of water ; and on his leaving the room, to confirm or re- 
move my doubts as to the cause of his lameness, I un- 
covered the Pilgrim's feet, and was answered — both his 
feet were clubbed, and the legs withered to the knee ; 
the fomi and face of an Apollo, with the feet and legs of 
a sylvan Satyr.' This is a tolerably fair description of 
the being whose destiny was linked with Miriam, that 
remarkable character in Hawthorne's novel. We ought 
also at the same time to note that a friend of Hawthorne's 
asserts it was Henr}^ Thoreau's wonderful intimacies with 
animals which first suggested this being. But however 
interesting its origin may be as an incident personal to 
the author, it is immaterial when we come to regard the 
story itself; and those who assume that the chief attrac- 
tion of the romance consists in its singular blending of 
the natural and the unnatural, commit, we think, a pro- 
found mistake. Its real gist lies in the revelation of the 
reflex action of one human heart upon another, and in 
\X\^facilis descensus Averfii of the spirit, when it has once 
commenced a certain career. Is it Fate — or if not, then 
what is it? — which seems from the very commencement 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 199 

of the narrative to be welding adamantine chains with 
which to interlock Donatello and Miriam ? No more 
pathetic story could well be conceived, and no plainer 
moral indicated, than we find here. Even the bystander 
Kenyon saw clearly how these links had been forged, for 
addressing the darkly beautiful Miriam, he said, ^ On his 
behalf, you have incurred a responsibility which you can- 
not fling aside;' and then, turning to Donatello, he 
added, * The mysterious process by which our earthly life 
instructs us for another state of being, was begun for you 
by her. She has rich gifts of heart and mind, a sugges- 
tive power, a magnetic influence, a sympathetic know- 
ledge, which, wisely and religiously exercised, are what 
your condition needs. The bond betwixt you, therefore, 
is a true one, and never — except by Heaven's own act — 
should be rent asunder ! ' These words were prophetic, 
for the speaker recked not of the dark secret which had 
knit together indissolubly those whom he was addressing. 
This inter-dependence of humanity, then^ brought about 
by destiny, is what is clearly taught in the novel ; and its 
general leaning to fatalism is very marked. In one pas- 
sage the author aflirms that as the future likeness exists 
in the block of marble which the sculptor takes for his 
work, so does the fate of the individual man exist in the 
limestone of time. Man may fancy that he carves his 



200 POETS AND NOVELISTS, 

own future out of the marble, but its ultimate shape was 
already known before any action on his part. This is a 
gloomy view to inculcate of man, that being who is gene- 
rally accredited with the possession of godlike capabilities 
and will. And as though to correct the impression 
which may be formed, Hawthorne hastens to put himself 
individually right with the reader on the matter by draw- 
ing another character, whose life is to be moulded by 
other influences, and to develop under the sway of other 
principles. In Hilda we have at once the contrast and 
the counterpart of Miriam. Not a shade of the evil 
which affected the latter comes near the graceful child of 
Nature, who goes singing through the world happy in 
herself, trustful in God, and free as the bird to whose 
music her own soul makes answer and tender response. 
Besides indicating, therefore, the fondness of the author 
for meddling with questions which have a great charm 
for the Darwin school, we perceive that this work deals 
with spiritual truths of the highest significance. Whether 
or no Donatello be really the outcome, after many gene- 
rations, of the progress of the Faun, the fact is well 
demonstrated of the close relation each unit of humanity 
bears to the other, and of the inferior fellowship which 
he possesses with the lower creation. The story itself 
has its triumph in the artistic sense ; while disclaiming 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 



the intention of giving a portraiture of Italian manners 
and character, the author has nevertheless been most 
successful in imbuing his romance with the atmosphere 
of Southern skies. Italy, with all its beauty, its tradi- 
tions, and its tragic history, was exactly the land for 
Hawthorne to select in which to fix the locale of his novel. 
In that country it seems almost impossible for the most 
prosaic not to be moved to poetic paroxysms. 

That extraordinary book, the ' DoUiver Romance,' 
did not find Hawthorne a whit nearer writing the ordi- 
nary novel of society. To the general romance-monger 
it would have possessed no charm, had the plot been 
originally suggested to him to work upon. Severely 
simple to a degree, it had one leading thought only, and 
that weird and strange as usual, viz., the idea of a death- 
less man ! True, there is a beautiful woman in it, Panzie, 
who affords a gleam of sunshine to a page surcharged 
with gloom, but the bulk of the story is impregnated with 
sadness, which nevertheless in the hands of the writer 
possesses a resistless enchantment. The fragment bears 
upon it sufficient indication of what it would have ripened 
to had fortune been propitious. Old Doctor Doliiver 
was to live on and on through far generations, loving 
and guarding Panzie, till the world in time forgot to 
measure his days and years, and began to count him 



202 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

immortal. For her youth, hope, and vitality, he was to 
make the exchange of wisdom and love ; and thus, 
moving hand in hand, life was to be made divine for 
both, and desolation thrust back into oblivion. Then, 
again, in ' Septimius,' the last work from this gifted hand, 
we behold the same great craving after immortality em- 
bodied in the person of the hero, mingled with other 
strange elements which make him not the least striking 
of Hawthorne's creations. The picture of the pale 
student, with his unquenchable thirst after the deep 
knowledge of the mysteries of life which he has set him- 
self to attain, is one that no other conceptions can 
obliterate. We watch him from those early days in 
which he first made love to Rose Garefield, and see how 
circumstances or fate gradually make him their own, till 
he, who was the most inoffensive of God's creatures by 
nature, feels that irresistible impulse to shed blood which 
develops in him so rapidly. Next he obtains possession 
of the document which changes the whole current and 
purpose of his life. His love for Rose, his love for 
himself and the world, and all created things, evaporate 
in the presence of a more terrible longing and burning 
for knowledge. Finally, at the hand of his enemy he 
learns the lesson that ' the wish of a man's inmost heart 
is oftenest that by which he is ruined and made mise- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 203 

rable.' One can see what a wonderful story Hawthorne 
would have made of this had he lived to complete it. 
The passages which are finished are distinguished for a 
full, rich style, elegant language, and well-poised sen- 
tences. Altogether, it suffers little by comparison in 
literary merit with the ' Blithedale Romance,' which, 
from the artistic point of view, as we have already in- 
timated, may be pronounced his masterpiece. Art and 
passion are in both works blended in a very rare degree. 
Compared with the writers of his own country, there 
is no difficulty in assigning his proper position as a 
novelist to this illustrious writer. He has no equal. It 
is rare to meet with his artistic qualities anywhere ; it is 
rarer still to find them united to the earnestness which so 
distinguished him. Whether as the result of an inheri- 
tance of the old Puritan blood or no, matters little, but 
in him there was apparently a sincerity truly refreshing 
amongst so many writers whose gifts have been vitiated 
by the lack thereof. Admirably did Russell Lowell de- 
pict him when he wrote the following lines in his ' Fable 
for Critics ! ' 

' There is Hawthorne, with genius so shrinking and rare. 
That you hardly at first see the strength that is there ; 
A frame so robust, with a nature so sweet. 
So earnest, so graceful, so solid, so fleet, 
Is worth a descent from Olympus to meet ; 



204 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

'Tis as if a rough oak that for ages had stood, 

With his gnarled bony branches hke ribs of the wood, 

Should bloom, after cycles of struggle and scathe, 

With a single anemone trembling and rathe ; 

His strength is so tender, his wildness so meek, 

That a suitable parallel sets one to seek, — 

He's a John Bunyan Fouqu^, a Puritan Tieck ; 

When Nature was shaping him, clay was not granted 

For making so full-sized a man as she wanted. 

So, to fill out her model, a little she spared. 

From some finer-grained stuff for a woman prepared. 

And she could not have hit a more excellent plan 

For making him fully and perfectly man.' 

That Hawthorne will ever be what we call a very 
popular novelist is open to much doubt. The habits of 
abstraction to which he was accustomed from his boy- 
hood had their influence upon his thought, which is not 
always expressed in a manner adapted to the average 
reader. At times he appears to be living away from the 
world altogether ; and society likes now what is concrete, 
something which it can handle and appraise, whether in 
literature, science, or art. It has Httle reverence for the 
conscientious worker, unless he can contrive to make a 
noise about his work. This, of course, was precisely 
what the writer whose claims are under discussion could 
not do. He knew what conscience w^as, and he revered 
knowledge ; but he never understood the rage for popu- 
larity. The real admiration for his books, which had its 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 205 

root in sympathy with the intellectual and spiritual throes 
of the author, was the highest reward he felt he could 
receive ; for that was intelligible. He had a shrinking 
from the lionising which is done on trust, that unpleasant 
phase which has crept over society during the last few 
years. The principle of giving the highest praise to the 
man who can play the loudest on the big drum was a 
hateful one to him. A silent rebuke to the fussiness of 
the nineteenth century, and to its fulsome adulation of 
what is unworthy, may be traced in his pages. This 
man had a strong and fearless spirit, and though he 
discussed questions occasionally which have been found 
too high for settlement in all ages, he did so with hu- 
mility and on reverent knee. 

Hawthorne had unquestionably, moreover, as will 
have been gathered, a strong poetic element in his 
nature, sublimated by constant contact with the various 
forms of sorrow. Through worldly loss he came to an 
insight into spiritual truths to which he might otherwise 
have been a stranger. At times he appears almost to 
distrust men, but it is never really so ; he laments man's 
indecision for the right, the evil growths which enwrap 
his soul, and that dark veil of sin which hides from him 
the smiling face of his Creator. ' Poet let us call him,' 
with Longfellow; but, greater still, an interpreter, through 



2o6 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

whose allegories and awe-inspiring creations breathe the 
soul that longs after the accomplishment of the dream of 
unnumbered centuries, the brotherhood of man. The 
world has been enriched by his genius, which is as a 
flower whose fragrance is shed upon man, but whose 
roots rest with God. 



THE BRONTES 



[CORNHILL magazine] 



THE BRONTES. 

No soil has the monopoly of Genius. Alike in the 
barbaric empires of the East and the Christian nations 
of the West, we behold numberless proofs and monu- 
ments of that force which has been irresistible in bursting 
the narrow bounds by which it was sought to be con- 
fined, and which men call Genius. This power, or 
adaptability, or whatever name is chosen to be given to 
it, is seen to be independent of the conditions which 
aftect men generally, or at least it rises superior to them ; 
it is a law to itself; in the world's darkest ages it has 
endeavoured to pierce the secrets of the universe, and 
has uttered language which has been the seed of wisdom 
for succeeding generations. Humanity has been more 
indissolubly knit together, and the gulf of time bridged 
over, by a Confucius and a Bacon. Truly independent, 
indeed, of the accidents of time or place, ' the light that 
never was on land or sea ' — to give a broad application 
to Wordsworth's graphic expression — beams forth upon 
all ages and peoples, but in gleams as fitful as the light- 

p 



2IO POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

ning which cleaves the dense thunder-cloud. Yet the 
greatest unbroken succession of the earth is this same 
genius, yielding those potentiaUties which have operated 
for the evil or the good of mankind. Wars and enthu- 
siasms have been kindled by it, and dying hopes have 
been revivified by its life-giving influence. It cannot 
die. Its light may be obscured, but never extinguished. 
Where the Divine spark exists it must become manifest, 
for it is imperishable. 

But our present purpose is to look at genius from a 
point which possesses even more of interest than its impe- 
rishability. It is to note its appearance in scenes which 
it has ever favoured, and where it has always disappointed 
the world. How frequently in history has it taken up its 
abode in the most unpromising soil, where there seemed 
no root for its rare and extraordinary growth ! Where 
nature has most darkly frowned, and the sterile aspect of 
her moors and hills has had a corresponding influence 
upon the population, thence have sprung some of the 
choicest spirits, whose lives were fragrant, and whose 
memories still 

Smell sweet and blossom in the dust. 

Perhaps no example could be cited in illustration 
which more clearly demonstrates the irrepressibility of 



THE BRONTES. 211 

genius than that of the remarkable trio of sisters who 
were known originally as Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. 
The truly surprising vigour of their mental consti- 
tutions can only be accurately gauged by a consideration 
of the natural and other disadvantages which they 
successfully overcame. To niany persons, we suppose, 
they will ever remain but a name, though one almost 
synonymous with sturdy independence of character ; but 
to those who more deeply study their separate individua- 
lities an untold wealth of interest and profit will be 
discovered. Their life's history proves that in the most 
barren regions the power of genius can flourish. The 
bleak, wild moorlands, with their poverty of natural 
beauties, were the nursery of rich lives, whose influence 
— with that of all other lives to whom the Divinity has 
intimately spoken — still lives, and must live, for long 
generations. The personal narrative, as related by Mrs. 
Gaskell, is one of mingled pathos and rarity. Some of 
the points in the Life of Charlotte Bronte it will be 
advisable to recall to the reader's attention before the 
works of the three sisters themselves are passed in re- 
view. Haworth village, whose parsonage was so long 
the residence of the Brontes, is in the West Riding of 
Yorkshire, and situate only a few miles from three towns 
of considerable importance — Halifax, Bradford, and 



212 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Keighley. The friend of Charlotte Bronte has en- 
deavoured to give some idea of the appearance of the 
district, but even she fails to depict it as it existed in 
the early part of the present century. In addition to the 
dull, monotonous stretch of moorland, with here and 
there a ' beck ' or a crag, as the sole variation for the 
weary eye, there was a population to be met with which 
in some respects exhibited no advance whatever over 
that of the Middle Ages. Nor is this scarcely to be 
wondered at, for within the knowledge of the present 
writer, to whom the whole locality is perfectly familiar, 
there were living a few years ago individuals who had 
never beheld one of the foremost powers of civilisation — 
the railway. Great natural shrewdness undoubtedly was 
a characteristic of the inhabitants of the Riding, and in 
many cases a rough kind of boiihomie was added, which, 
however, was frequently made more offensive than posi- 
tive rudeness. Add to this that there was very little 
opportunity afforded to the poor for culture — twelve, 
fourteen, and sixteen hours per day being their constant 
labour at the factories — and the imagination will have 
little left to do in forming an estimate of the exoteric 
existence of the Yorkshire character. The people were, 
and indeed now are, hard-fisted, but scarcely so much so 
as the reader of Mrs. Gaskell would gather ; for many 



THE BRONTES. 213 



have a passion for personal adornment, whilst others will 
spend considerable time and money in attaining pro- 
ficiency in music, for which they have a natural talent 
beyond that possessed by the inhabitants of any other 
county in England. They are good friends and good 
haters. The misers, mostly, are to be found in the type 
of small manufacturers or cotton-spinners, who, bereft of 
many of those graces which should adorn the human 
character, set themselves with dogged persistency to the 
making of ' brass,' as they term wealth. With some the 
passion is carried to a lamentable, and at the same time 
amusing excess. A characteristic story is told of a per- 
son of this class, who was tolerably rich, and had been 
seized with illness soon after taking out his policy. 
When the doctor made him aware of his hopeless state, 
he jumped up delighted, shouting, * By Jingo ! I shall 
do the insurance company! I always was a lucky 
fellow ! ' Another trait in people much poorer in station 
than those just referred to was the fixedness of their 
religious principles. The doctrine of Election had firmer 
root in their minds — and indeed has now in those of 
their successors — than is found to be the case elsewhere. 
The factory hands would stand at the loom till nature 
yielded to consumption or to the hardness of the burdens 
it was called upon to bear, but in the hour of dissolution, 



214 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

as in every hour of sentient existence in the past, would 
be apparent the conviction that as surely as the sun rose 
in the morning, so surely were they themselves predesti- 
nated to a triumphant salvation, of which it was an 
impossibility they could be rifled by the combined 
powers of the universe. Amidst this stern and unyield- 
ing race, then, was the lot of the sisters cast, and it 
would have been strange had not their genius been 
directed in its moulding by such distinctive surroundings. 
To understand at all the spirit of their works, it is ne- 
cessary to have some preliminary knowledge of the kind 
just indicated. Precocity distinguished the whole trio, 
though that is not an unfailing sign of future celebrity. 
When children, their answers to questions were clever 
and characteristic. Emily, whose intellect was always 
singularly clear, firm, and logical, when asked what 
should be done A\ath her brother Branwell, if he should 
be naughty, instantly replied, 'Reason with him, and 
when he won't listen to reason, whip him.' And as 
another indication of the quick ripening of faculties in 
this remarkable family, it may be mentioned that Mr. 
Bronte said he could converse with his daughter Maria 
on all the leading questions of the day when she was 
only eleven years of age. Charlotte Bronte was at an 
early age familiar with all the forms of suffering and death. 



THE BRONTES, 215 



and her life, from its commencement to its close, may be 
said to have been one prolonged endurance of agony. 
Yet the grandeur of her courage must always strike us as 
one of the sublimest spectacles. When a child she lost 
those who were dear to her. and there were none who could 
understand the vast yearnings of her nature. Then came 
the stirrings of her genius, and she longed to take flight, 
but her wings were weighted, and she was kept enchained 
to the dull earth. A few more years, and another trouble, 
almost worse than death, cast its horrible shadow over 
her path. The melancholy story of her brother Branwell, 
whom she loved deeply, in spite of his numberless errors 
and terrible slavery to one master-passion, is matter 01 
general knowledge. To his death succeeded that of Emily 
Bronte, the sister whom Charlotte especially loved. To 
see her drift out into the great Unknown Sea was trouble 
inexpressible to that loving soul — which had watched her 
with fostering care, and hoped to have witnessed the 
universal acknowledgment of her splendid genius. Sel- 
dom was the heavy cloud lifted from the head of our 
author on those dull Yorkshire hills : can it be matter of 
surprise, then, that her works should bear the impress of 
the character of her life ? The wonder is, that the sun 
should break through at all, as it does in ' Shirley,' with 
beams of real geniality and cheerfulness. But the life 



2i6 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

was destructive of that gentler kind of humour of which 
we are sure Charlotte Bronte must have had originally 
a considerable endowment. She was necessarily pro- 
pelled towards the painting of what was frequently harsh, 
and always peculiar and extraordinary. Her perceptions 
were keen — as will be admitted by the close student of 
her works — not only of human life, but of nature, and 
what she wrote must therefore exhibit the qualities of 
truth and strength. Severe discipline waited upon her 
through all her history, and its results are graphically 
depicted in her works, each of which deals with the 
experience of some stage of her brief existence. One 
almost wonders, as we follow her career, where her 
happiness came from. There was no society, no wealth, 
none of the common delights of life for her, whilst death 
was always approaching with measured, but inevitable 
steps, when not, indeed, already in the house. Doubt- 
less her literary occupations yielded her at times intense 
enjoyment, but she possessed, in addition, a faith in 
Providence which must have been like that of a child 
for simplicity and strength — a faith to which many, 
who boasted of their Christian excellence, were perfect 
strangers, and to whom its existence in her was utterly 
unsuspected. 

The iron will of this truly great woman was never 



THE BRONTES. ii-j 



broken till the period came when she must yield up her 
own life. Then the weakness— if such it can be called — 
which she exhibited, arose not from any fear respecting 
herself, but for the tender and faithful husband whom 
she was leaving behind. Desolation, blank and utter, 
overtook the father and husband when her heart ceased 
to beat, such as the old parsonage had never experienced 
before. Charlotte's spirit had nerved others so long as 
it was with them, and the tenement of hope was not 
completely shattered till she died. The picture Mrs. 
Gaskeli gives of the closing moments and of the funeral 
is very touching. With regard to the latter it painfully 
reminded her of the scene after the death of Oliver 
Goldsmith. Mr. Forster thus describes it : ' The stair- 
case of Brick Court is said to have been filled with 
mourners, the reverse of domestic ; women without a 
home, without domesticity of any kind, with no friend 
but him they had come to weep for j outcasts of that 
great solitary, wicked city, to whom he had never for- 
gotten to be kind and charitable.' Such w^ould have 
followed Charlotte Bronte's remains to the grave, but the 
survivors wanted not the sympathy of strangers, their 
grief being too keen to be assuaged. The detractors of 
the writer of ' Jane Eyre ' could have had little real 
understandmg of her. Those who knew her best were 



2i8 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

the fallen and distressed, to whose wants she had minis- 
tered, and, better still, into whose bruised and dejected 
souls she had poured the sweet balm of sympathy. Such 
shall judge the woman ; as for her genius, that will take 
care of itself ; its fruits are too genuine to be in danger 
of perishing. 

The novels of Charlotte Bronte were totally dissimilar 
in style to all which had been previously given to the 
world, and their quality was not such as to be at the first 
moment attractive. Masculine in their strength, and 
very largely so in the cast of thought, there could be no 
wonder that the public should assume Currer Bell to be 
of the sterner sex, and even persist in its delusion after 
the most express assurance to the contrary. Certainly 
one can sympathise with the feeling of astonishment that 
' Jane Eyre ' should have been written by a woman. 
What vigour there is in it compared with the novels of 
another great artist. Miss Austen ! For sheer force, she 
has even eclipsed her own chief of novel-writers, Sir 
Walter Scott, whilst Balzac, who, as CuiTer Bell said, 
' always left a nasty taste in her mouth,' is also out- 
stripped in the delineation of passion. Many readers 
were doubtless repulsed from a fair and candid perusal 
of the works of Charlotte Bronte by certain adverse cri- 
ticisms which had pronounced them extremely coarse. 



THE BRONTES. 219 



The unfairness of this charge we think it will not be 
difficult to show presently. Faithful transcripts of the 
life she had witnessed they certainly were ; distorted they 
were not. Speaking of fiction, the author of ' The 
Curiosities of Literature ' has said — ' Novels, as they 
were long mamifacUircd, form a library of illiterate authors 
for illiterate readers ; but as they are created by genius, 
are precious to the philosopher. They paint the cha- 
racter of an individual or the manners of the age more 
perfectly than any other species of composition : it is in 
novels we observe, as it were passing under our own 
eyes, the refined frivolity of the French, the gloomy and 
disordered sensibility of the German ; and the petty in- 
trigues of the modern Italian in some Venetian novels.' 
We accept this as a tolerably substantial appraisement of 
the rdle of the novelist ; but in order to be strengthened 
in our opinion, let us look at what the eminent 
philosopher Adam Smith said of the true novelist, and 
surely no higher praise could be desired by our story- 
writers. ' The poets and romance-writers who,' he says, 
' best paint the refinements and delicacies of love and 
friendship, and of all other private and domestic 
affections, Racine and Voltaire, Richardson, Marivaux, 
and Riccoboni, are in this case much better instructors 
than Zeno, Chr^'sippus, or Epictetus.' But surely we 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



need not stay to argue here that the novel, when in the 
hands of a true genius, can be made one of the best 
instructors of the human race. It is so because there is 
nothing of the abstract about it — which the mind of 
mankind generally abhors ; it is a record of the concrete 
existence of individuals like ourselves, and must there- 
fore be profitable both for amusement, interest, and 
guidance. A good novelist can scarcely be appreciated 
too highly. In this class we place Charlotte Bronte ; 
she fulfils the requirements glanced at already in the 
words of Mr. D'Israeli, and is in every respect a faithful 
delineator of the scenes and persons she professes to 
describe. How faithful, indeed, few can scarcely tell, 
but the mass can darkly feel it on close acquaintance 
with her. The charge of coarseness brought against her 
works she herself indignantly repelled, but the base 
notion of such a charge must have cruelly wounded her 
spirit, which, though strong and brave as a lion, was yet 
pure and tender as that of a child. She said, ' I trust 
God will take from me whatever power of invention or 
expression I may have, before He lets me become blind 
to the sense of what is fitting or unfitting to be said.' 
And it is on record that she was deeply grieved and 
long distressed by the remark made to her on one 
occasion, 'You know, vou and I, Miss Bronte, have both 



THE BRONTES. 221 



wTitten naughty books ! ' Mrs. Gaskell goes so far as 
to admit that there are passages in the writings of Currer 
Bell which are coarse ; for ourselves, we can scarcely 
understand what is meant. Roughness there is, but 
indecency none, and coarseness seems to us to imply a 
little more than mere roughness. Several of the 
characters she has drawn are reproductions in type of 
the wildest natures, and the over-refined sensibilities of 
some readers are possibly shocked by their extreme 
naturalness. Charlotte Bronte simply thought of paint- 
ing them as they appeared, never thinking for a moment 
there could be harm in laying in deep shadows where 
deep shadows were required. Fielding was coarse, 
Wycherley and some of the other dramatists more so, 
but their examples show that coarseness is an unfortunate 
epithet to apply to the writings of Currer Bell. If 
applicable to them, it is totally inappHcable to her. 
Her coarseness — if such quality exists at all — was 
undetachable from her subjects. She would have 
ceased to be the true delineator and the real artist she 
aspired to be, had she swerved from the outlines ot 
character she undertook to fill in. In truth, we need 
only turn to ' Shirley ' and ' Jane Eyre ' to prove the 
position that Charlotte Bronte was far beyond the 
common novelist. In the former story we have 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



characters which for sweetness have been rarely excelled, 
whilst in the latter we have a Jupiter of rugged strength 
and passion. The novelist has power to go out of 
herself — that attribute of the great artist. It is genius 
which impels, and she must obey. If the characters are 
occasionally coarse, she is unconscious of it ; she is only 
aware of their truth. No need for her to lop off the 
distorted branches in the human forest of her delineations 
in order to secure a level growth of mediocrity. She 
could not if she would, and is too intent on the 
manifestations of nature to do so if she could. Such 
creations as please the ordinary romance-monger would 
be an abhorrence to her ; it is because she exalted Art 
that she could not depart from the True, with which the 
former, when real, is ever in unison. 

' The Professor,' which was the first work written by 
Charlotte Bronte ostensibly for publication, though not 
by any means her first effort in fiction (what author does 
not carry the recollection of many juvenile crudities ?), 
exhibits a great amount of conscious power, but also an 
inability on the part of the writer to give herself free 
scope. A comparison between this and succeeding 
works will show how she was cramped in its composition. 
The story is good, nevertheless, though numerous pub- 
lishers to whom it was submitted decided otherwise. Its 



THE BRONTES. 223 



author has possibly hit upon the reason for its rejection, 
when in the preface she says she determined to give her 
hero no adventitious aid or success whatever. He was 
to succeed, if he did so, by the sheer force of his own 
brain and labour. ' As Adam's son he should share 
Adam's doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and 
moderate cup of enjoyment.' These principles were of 
course unpopular ; the novel-readers of the day de- 
manded something which should exhibit more of the 
romantic and the heroic. Battling well, however, with 
materials which were in the outset obstructive, Currer 
Bell achieved a substantial success There can be no 
doubt that her husband, in consenting to the publication 
of the volume subsequently, did a wise act. There is 
much in the work which is characteristic of its author as 
she appears in her later novels, and the drawing of at 
least one of the characters, Mr. Hunsden, is masterly. 
Some of the materials, we are told, were afterwards used 
in 'Villette ;' but if so they are carefully disguised, and the 
world could very well afford to welcome the two. Pas- 
sages occur in 'The Professor' which are almost startling in 
their strength of passion and eloquence, and which alone 
would have given to Currer Bell the stamp of originality. 
All the toilsome way by which the person who gives the 
title to the volume is led, is marked by the intensest 



224 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

sympathy on the part of the author, and although the 
reader may not be able to feel much personal enthusiasm 
for the various characters, he must at once yield the point 
that he is perusing the thoughts of no common mind. 
The valuable knowledge which the author acquired 
abroad is utilised with considerable skill, whilst she is 
equally at home when she comes to delineate the York- 
shire family of the Crimsworths. Her ideas of love and 
marriage, afterwards so fully developed in her other 
novels, are here touched upon. 'I am no Oriental,' says 
the Professor : ' white necks, carmine lips and cheeks, 
clusters of bright curls, do not suffice for me, without 
that Promethean spark, which will live after the roses 
and Hlies are faded, the burnished hair grown grey. In 
sunshine, in prosperity, the flowers are very well ; but 
how many wet days are there in life — November seasons 
of disaster — when a man's hearth and home would be 
cold, indeed, without the clear, cheering gleam of intel- 
lect ? ' Love without the union of souls, the author 
again and again insists, is a delusion, the sheen of a sum- 
mer's day, and quite as fleeting. Altogether the idea ot 
' The Professor ' was new, and as an indication of the 
grooves in which its author's genius was afterwards to 
run, we would not willingly have lost it. As a psycho- 
logical study alone it was well worthy of preservation. 



THE BRONTES. 225 



But better and more remarkable works followed. 
The reading world has very seldom been startled by such 
a genuine and powerful piece of originality as ' Jane Eyre.' 
One can almost gauge the feeling, after reading it, which 
caused Charlotte Bronte to be such an enthusiastic 
admirer of Thackeray. He, at any rate, she knew, 
would appreciate her efforts, for was he not also engaged 
(with even more splendid talents) in the crusade against 
conventionality ? He, at least, understood her burning 
words, when she affirmed that ' conventionality is not 
morality, self-righteousness is not religion. To attack 
the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask 
from the face of the Pharisee, is not to Hft an impious 
hand to the Crown of Thorns.' These words will 
sufficiently show how she endeavoured to tread in the 
steps of ' the first social regenerator of the day,' and to 
whom she inscribed the second edition of her most 
widely known book. '■ Jane Eyre ' is an autobiography, 
and its intention is to present a plain, unbiassed 
narrative of a woman's life from its commencement to a 
period when it is supposed to have ceased to possess 
interest to mankind generally. It is told fearlessly, and 
with a burning pen. But there is no siipp7'essio veri; 
that, its author would have scorned : perhaps it would 
have been better for its reception in some quarters — 

Q 



226 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

limited in range we are happy to think — if the narrator 
of the story had glossed over some portions of her 
heroine's history. She has chosen, however, to adhere 
to stern reality, and there it is finally for us, unpleasant 
and rough though it be in some of its recorded ex- 
periences. The book shows the most opposite qualities 
— light, darkness ; beauty, deformity ; strength, tender- 
ness. Its pathos is of the finest quality, stirring most 
deeply because it is simple and unforced. The situations 
are very vivid ; several scenes being depicted which it 
would be impossible to eradicate from the memory after 
the most extensive reading of serial literature. Even 
those who regard it as coarse must admit its strange 
fascination. It was a book that could afford to be 
independent of criticism, and accordingly we find that, 
before the reviews appeared, anxious and continuous 
enquiries respecting it began to be made at the libraries. 
There was not much fiction being written which fixed 
the public eye, and the issue of this novel almost created 
an era. Forgotten now is th^ savage criticism of the 
reviewer who said of the author of 'Jane Eyre,' *She 
must be one who for some sufficient reason has long 
forfeited the society of her sex,' whilst the work which 
baffled his judgment, but earned his vituperation, still 
remains, a memento of real genius which could not be 



THE BRONTES. 



227 



suppressed. Although chiefly remarkable for its 
prominent delineation of the passion of love in strong 
and impulsive natures, there are many other points 
which are noticeable about it, and should therefore be 
mentioned. The keen observation of the writer is 
manifest on almost every page. Intense realism is its 
chief characteristic. The pictures are as vivid and bold 
as though etched by a Rembrandt, or drawn by a 
Salvator Rosa. Dickens has been almost equalled by 
the description of the school at Lowood, to which 
Miss Eyre was sent, and which might well be described 
as Dothegirls' Hall. Here, however — melancholy lot ! — 
in addition to indifferent food, suppHed in very limited 
quantities, there was a good deal of threatening about 
'damnation.' The hypocritical minister, Mr. Brockle- 
hurst (as drawn by the author), had sometimes the worst 
of it in his dealings with Jane Eyre, as, for instance, in 
this : ' What is hell ? ' ' A pit full of fire.' ' What must 
you do to avoid it?' The answer was a little ob- 
jectionable, as the autobiographer says — ' I must keep in 
good health and not die.' As a corrective, she had 
given to her to read ' The Child's Guide,' containing 'an 

account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G , a 

naughty child addicted to falsehood and deceit.' Cer- 
tainly if this mental pabulum, combined with the 

Q2 



228 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

material one of nauseous burnt porridge, was not potent 
in keeping down the old Adam, it would be impossible 
to mention an effectual remedy, one would think. As 
the story progresses it becomes most thrilling, and we 
are introduced to a character which is frequently 
regarded, and not without reason, as Currer Bell's 
^masterpiece of powerful drawing — viz., Mr. Rochester. 
Strong and yet weak, a very thunderbolt for strength 
and explosiveness, and yet a bundle of ordinary human 
weaknesses, this individual stands forth as real and living 
a portrait as is to be found existing in word-painting. 
He is attractive in spite of his numerous faults, and 
where is the character who more stood in need of pity? 
Picture him at Thornfield, united in wedlock to a raving 
maniac, who in her paroxysms attempted his life, whilst 
he, in return, saved hers — that very life which was a 
curse, and brought unutterable gloom to him. Then, 
too, he saw the form that he loved, but could not retain, 
and yet felt the movement of a wicked but ineffable 
love towards her — wicked, because of the tie which 
bound him to the wild being who bore his name. Add 
to all this that his nature was as sensitive as it was 
intense, and where is the person who could not pity 
Fairfax Rochester? Behold him again after he has been 
maimed in the fruitless endeavour to save the maniac 



THE BRONTES. 229 



from death. He describes himself as ' no better than 
the old lightning- struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield 
orchard ; ' but is the process of purification to be 
counted as nothing which has brought about this 
result ? — 

' Jane ! you think me an irreligious dog, I dare say ; but 
my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this 
earth just now. He sees not as man sees, but far clearer; 
judges not as man judges, but far more wisely. I did wrong : 
I would have sullied my innocent flower — breathed guilt on 
its purity ; the Omnipotent snatched it from me, I, in my 
stiff-necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation : in- 
stead of bending to the decree, I defied it. Divine justice 
pursued its course ; disasters came thick on me : I was 
forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. 
His chastisements are mighty, and one smote me which has 
humbled me for ever. You know I was proud of my strength, 
but what is it now when I must give it over to foreign guid- 
ance as a child does its weakness .'* Of late, Jane — only — 
only of late — I began to see and acknowledge the hand of 
God in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repent- 
ance ; the wish for reconcilement to my Maker. I began 
sometimes to pray ; very brief prayers they were, but very 
sincere.' 

Verily, this is the epitome of an experience worthy 
of being sympathised with, and valuable to be written. 

There can be no doubt that the first and greatest 
cause of the extreme vividness of the writings of Charlotte 



230 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Bronte and, her sisters is the fact that most of the cha- 
racters depicted are as faithful copies from real hfe as 
though an artist had sat down and limned their features. 
More so : for the artist has nothing to do with psycho- 
logicvil characteristics, which, in the case of the authors, 
are as accurately described as the features. Having 
fixed upon their subjects for analysis, they clung to them 
like a shadow or a second self, and the very isolation by 
which they were surrounded lent strength to their con- 
ceptions. The characters are true to their respective 
natures, and their final ends are fearlessly worked out. 
Having spoken of the book which made the fame of 
Charlotte Bronte, let us glance at her next most im- 
portant work, and the one which we like best of all — 
' Shirley.' It opens with a chapter in which a vein of 
humour unsuspected in Charlotte Bronte is manifested, 
and we know of no other author whose sketches so much 
remind us of George Eliot as does this delineation of 
the three curates. The writer has completely unbent, re- 
laxed from the severity which so greatly predominates 
in her other works, and given play to a quiet and yet 
quaint drollery which is positively irresistible. A little 
further on, however, we come to more serious business ; 
and the terrible machinery riots which so disastrously 
retarded commercial progress at the period at which this 



THE BRONTES. 23] 



history is fixed, afford excellent scope for those graphic 
descriptions in which Currer Bell stands almost un- 
rivalled. The West Riding of Yorkshire, and some parts 
of Lancashire, were especially subjected to hardships and 
ementes on account of these improvements and inven-- 
tions in manufacture, and the sketch of Robert Moore's 
campaign against the bigoted factory operatives in his 
employ and that of his neighbours is only a fancy one as 
regards the disposition of the events. Such things were 
common at tlie time of the Luddite riots, but in adopt- 
ing these riots as the foundation of her story, the author 
also took characters living in her own day and at her 
own door, so to speak, hoping that they would thus pass 
unrecognised. But the fact that the riots occurred thirty 
years previously did not blind the people portrayed to 
the knowledge that they were gazing upon their own 
portraits. The Yorkes, the three curates, and Mrs. 
Prior are all portraits, wliilst Shirley herself is Emily 
Bronte idealised, or rather what Emily would have been 
had she been placed in different circumstances. Though 
the book is singularly strong in individualities, there is, 
further, more general merit in its writing. Its scenic 
effects are beautiful ; the deep love of nature which 
possessed the soul of Currer Bell is more observable here 
than elsewhere. It is what we should describe as a 



232 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

novel good ' all round.' It has no weak side ; it is the 
most perfect piece of writing the author has left behind 
her. There is not the terrible sweep of passion we see 
in 'Jane Eyre ; ' the roughnesses of life are smoothed down 
'a Httle, and it seems altogether more humanised and 
humanising. The most opposite events are touched 
upon skilfully. Who can forget, for instance, the 
description of the revival in the new Wesleyan Chapel 
at Briarfield, when ' Doad o' Bill's ' announced positively 
that he had ' fun (found) liberty,' and the excitement 
amongst the brethren was intense. Why can't these 
worthy people take their religion a little more quietly ? 
As our author says on this occasion, ' the roof of the 
chapel did not fly off ; which speaks volumes in praise 
of its solid slating.' A little further on we get another 
sample of power, occurring in the • description of a 
female character. 'Nature made her in the mood in 
which she makes her briars and thorns ; whereas for the 
creation of some women she reserves the May morning 
hours, when with light and dew she wooes the primrose 
from the turf, and the lily from the woodmoss.' Again, 
we find in this novel that although Currer Bell was not a 
great poetess through the usual medium of measured 
cadence, she could write fine, genuine poetry in a prose 



THE BRONTES. 233 



setting. Witness the following description of nature put 
into the mouth of Shirley : — 

' I saw — I now see — a woman-Titan : her robe of blue air 
spreads to the outskirts of the heath where yonder flock is 
grazing ; a veil, white as an avalanche, sweeps from her head 
to her feet, and arabesques of lightning flame on its borders. 
Under her breast I see her zone, purple hke that horizon ; 
through its blush shines the star of evening. Her steady 
eyes I cannot picture; they are clear — they are deep as 
lakes — they are lifted and full of worship — they tremble with 
the softness of love and the lustre of prayer. Her forehead 
has the expanse of a cloud, and is paler than the early moon, 
risen long before dark gathers ; she reclines her bosom on 
the ridge of Stillbro' Moor ; her mighty hands are joined 
beneath it. So kneeling, face to face she speaks with God. 
That Eve is Jehovah's daughter, as Adam was his son.' 

Our young poets might well covet a power of poetic 
description like this. As with all true poetry, there is 
not only the form but the halo. The expression, coming 
as it did from the feeling, begets in us the feeling again. 
Other passages of equal beauty could be culled from 
'- Shirley,' gems gHttering here and there in a great broad 
field. Nature, love, happiness, misery, loss, gain, are the 
themes dilated upon, on each of which much is given 
to delight, to improve, and to engender sympathy. 
Charlotte Bronte exhibits a marked contrast in one 
respect to the greatest female novelist at present living. 



234 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

and perhaps ' Shirley ' is the clearest example of what we 
mean. Her faith is unwavering — faith in the Unseen. 
But because He is Unseen she would teach us that that 
is no reason why He should be Unknown. Neither 
does she form impossible ideals. Shirley is as grand a 
character in her way as Dorothea Brooke, but we can 
comprehend her better. And though Shirley's soul was 
deep, and she had yearnings after greatness, her hopes 
were not placed beyond fruition, as in the case of 
Dorothea. The former says : ' Indisputably, a great, 
good, handsome man is the first of created things. I 
would scorn to contend for empire with him. Shall my 
left hand dispute for precedence with my right? — shall 
my heart quarrel with my pulse? — shall my veins be 
jealous of the blood which fills them? ' Some feeling of 
this kind, of course, Dorothea indulged towards Mr. 
Casaubon ; but in her case the idol is shattered, whilst 
Shirley obtains in the love of Louis Moore all that she 
craves for. It was Dorothea's fate to be always finding 
humanity fail, and created things insufficient to fill the 
void in her nature. In this sense Shirley is the superior 
character. Besides her love, she had a truer insight into 
the means of procuring happiness. She discovered that 
it must sometimes be worked for with her own hands. 
Thus, then, was her nature completely rounded. With 



THE BRONTES. 235 

reverence to the Supreme were added his richest gift of 
love and the link of benevolence to bind her to the rest 
of mankind. Not so serenely beautiful as Dorothea, and 
not perhaps so lofty in intellect, she is yet a more sue - 
cessful character. On her forehead there is not written — 
failure. 

If the sisters Bronte had early in life been accustomed 
to mingle in society, and had not been imprisoned within 
the walls of Haworth parsonage, there can be little 
question that we should have had more masterly and 
more general works from their hands. The skill they 
exhibit in delineating life should not have been confined 
to the inhabitants of those northern moors, but should 
have been employed in other haunts and other scenes 
likewise. Their field has been necessarily restricted, 
though their genius had full play on the subjects within 
their reach. But to demonstrate the capacity to turn 
experience to account wherever it might be obtained, we 
only need to direct the reader's attention to Charlotte 
Bronte's latest work, 'Villette.' It is redolent of the 
society of Brussels, where the author and her sister spent 
some years of their lives. To the ordinary English reader 
it is probably the most uninteresting of all the works of 
Miss Bronte, as page after page is composed mostly of 
French, and that sometimes difficult and idiomatic. 



236 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

This doubtless operated to some extent against its 
popularity with the mass of novel-readers, though the 
book seems to have earned the most lavish encomiums 
from the critics. It exhibits, however, the genius neither 
of ' Jane Eyre ' nor of ' Shirley : ' it is, in truth, superior 
to the fiction of ninety per cent, of novelists, but it 
scarcely warranted the extravagant terms of praise which 
were showered upon it by the reviewers. These valuable 
individuals, however, were, as is too often the case un- 
fortunately, wise after the event — that is, they found it 
tolerably safe to eulogise a new work from the hand of 
one who had already established her position as amongst 
the most original writers of the age. One or two 
of the dramatis persoim evoke sentiments of approval 
an account of their originality, conspicuous amongst them 
being Mr. Paul Emanuel and Miss de Bassompierre ; but 
on the whole the book is disappointing, for there is no 
one character whose fortunes we are anxious to follow ; 
and a novel which fails to beget a personal interest must 
be said to have lost its chief charm. 

Emily Bronte — for it is now time that we should say 
something of the two other persons in this remarkable 
trio — was, in certain respects, the most extraordinary of 
the three sisters. She has this distinction at any rate, 
that she has written a book which stands as completely 



THE BRONTES. 237 



alone in the language as does the ' Paradise Lost ' or the 
' Pilgrim's Progress.' This of itself, setting aside subject 
and construction, is no mean eminence. Emily Jane 
Bronte, as is well known, was the youngest but one of 
the Rev. Mr. Bronte's children, and died before she was 
thirty years of age. Early in life she displayed a singularly 
masculine bent of intellect, and astonished those with 
whom she came in contact by her penetration, and that 
settlement of character which generally only comes with 
age. She went from home twice, once to school and once 
to Brussels, but it was like the caging of a lioness, and her 
soul yearned for the liberty of home. When in Brussels 
she attracted and impressed deeply all those who came 
across her, and M. Heger declared she should have been 
a man, for ' her powerful reason would have deduced new 
spheres of discovery from the knowledge of the old, and 
her strong, imperious will would never have been 
daunted by opposition or difficulty : never have given 
way but with life.' On her return to Haworth she began 
to lose in beauty but to gain in impressiveness of feature, 
and she divided her time between homely domestic 
duties, studies, and rambles. Shrinking entirely from 
contact with the life which surrounded her, she gave 
herself up to nature, the result being apparent in her 
works, which reveal a most intimate acquaintance with 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



the great Mother in all her moods. Her mind was 
absolutely free to all the lessons which she should teach, 
and she embraced them with the most passionate longing. 
' Her native hills were far more to her than a spectacle ; 
they were what she lived in, and by, as much as the wild 
birds, their tenants, or as the heather, their produce.' 
Her descriptions, then, of natural scenery, are what they 
should be, and all they should be. Any reader of her works 
must perforce acknowledge the accuracy of these observa- 
tions. Her life, however, seemed to be an unprized one, 
except by that sister who loved her profoundly, and who 
keenly appreciated her genius as it essayed to unfold its 
wings in the sun. But whilst she lived the world made no 
sign of recognition of her strangely weird powers. When 
illness came her indomitable will still enabled her to 
present an unflinching front to sympathising friends. 
She refused to see the doctor, and would not have it 
that she was ill. To the last she retained an independent 
spirit, and on the day of her death she arose and dressed 
herself as usual. Her end reminds us of that of her 
brother Branwell whose ^vill was so strong that he 
insisted on standing up to die and did actually so die. 
Emily did everything for herself on that last day, but as 
the hours drew on got manifestly worse, and could only 
whisper in gasps. The end came when it was too late to 



THE BRONTES. 239 



profit by human skill. ' Wuthering Heights/ the principal 
work she has left behind her, shows a massive strength 
which is of the rarest description. Its power is absolutely 
Titanic : from the first page to the last it reads like the 
intellectual throes of a giant. It is fearful, it is true, and 
perhaps one of the most unpleasant books ever written : 
but we stand in amaze at the almost incredible fact that 
it was written by a slim country girl who would have 
passed in a crowd as an insignificant person, and who 
had had little or no experience of the ways of the world. 
In HeathcHff, Emily Bronte has drawn the greatest 
villain extant, after lago. He has no match out of 
Shakspeare. The Mephistopkeles of Goethe's ^ Faust ' 
is a person oi gentlemanly proclivities compared with 
Heathcliff. There is not a redeeming quality in him ; 
his coarseness is very repellent ; he is a unique specimen 
of the human tiger. Charlotte Bronte in her digest of 
this character finds one ameliorating circumstance in his 
favour, one link which connects him with humanity — viz., 
his regard for one of his victims, Hareton Earnshaw. 
But we cannot agree with her : his feeling towards 
Earnshaw is excessively like that feline affection which 
sometimes destroys its own offspring. As to his alleged 
esteem for Nelly Dean, perhaps also the less said about 
that the better. But ' Wuthering Heights ' is a marvellous 



240 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

curiosity in letters. We challenge the world to produce 
another work in which the whole atmosphere seems so 
surcharged with suppressed electricity, and bound in 
with the blackness of tempest and desolation. From the 
time when young Heath cliff is introduced to us, ' as dark 
almost as if he came from the devil,' to the last page of 
the story, there is nothing but savagery and ferocity, 
except when we are taken away from the persons to the 
scenes of the narratives, and treated to those pictures 
in which the author excels. The Heights itself, the old 
north-country manor-house, is made intensely real to us, 
but not more so than the central figure of the story, who, 
believing himself alone one night, throws open the 
lattice, and cries with terrible anguish — ' Cathy ! oh, my 
heart's darling. Hear me this once. Catherine, at 
last ! ' Then his history is recapitulated, by one who 
witnessed his life in all its stages ; and in the passage 
where Catherine informs her nurse that she has promised 
to marry Edgar Linton, but ought not to have done so, 
we get the following example of concentrated force : — 

' I have no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I 
have to be in Heaven. But it would degrade me to marry 
Heathcliff now ; so he shall never know how I love him, and 
that not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's 
more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, 
his and mine are the same ; and Linton's is as different as 



THE BRONTES. 241 

moonbeams from lightning, or frost from fire. . . . Who is 
to separate us ? they'll meet the fate of Milo. I cannot ex- 
press it ; but surely you and everybody have a notion that 
there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. 
What were the use of my creation if I were entirely con - 
tained here ? My great miseries in this world have been 
Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the 
beginning ; my great thought in living is himself. If all else 
perished and he remained, / should continue to be ; and if 
all else remained and he were annihilated, the universe 
would turn to a mighty stranger ; I should not seem a part 
of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods : 
time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the 
trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks 
beneath : a source of little visible delight, but necessary. 
Nelly, 1 a7n Heathcliff ! He's always, always in my mind ; not 
as a pleasure any more than I am always a pleasure to my- 
self, but as my own being.' 

Then comes Catherine's death — when she asks for- 
giveness for having wronged him, and Heathcliff answers, 
'Kiss me again; and don't let me see your eyes! I 
forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer 
— but ji'(??/;t ! How can I?' The tale of woe proceeds; 
the despairing man longing for the dead, until at last he 
faces death, and being asked if he will have the minister, 
replies — ' I tell you I have nearly attained my Heaven ; 
and that of others is altogether unvalued and uncoveted 
by me.' He then sleeps beside her: the tragedy of 
eighteen years is complete. A great deal has been said 

R 



242 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

on the question whether such a book as ' Wuthering 
Heights' ought to be written, and Charlotte Bronte 
herself felt impelled to utter some words of defence for 
it. Where the mind is healthy it can do no harm ; but 
there are, possibly, organisations upon whom it might 
exercise a baleful influence. With regard to the drawing 
of Heathcliff, CuiTer Bell scarcely thought the creation 
of such beings justifiable, but she goes on to say that 
'the writer who possesses the creative gift owns 
something of which he is not always master — something 
that, at times, strangely wills and works for itself We 
are afraid that if this opinion were pushed to its logical 
issues it would be found incapable of being supported. 
A multiplication of such books as * Wuthering Heights ' 
without corresponding genius would be a lamentable 
thing, no doubt ; yet, while we cannot defend it 
altogether possibly as it stands, we should regret never 
having seen it, as one of the most extraordinaiy and 
powerful productions in the whole range of English 
literature. 

Anne Bronte, the youngest of the three sisters, was 
unlike Charlotte and Emily in disposition and mental 
constitution. She was not so vigorous, and seemed more 
dependent upon the sympathy of others. These 
characteristics are apparent in her works, though in her 



THE BRONTES, 



243 



principal novel there are touches which almost remind 
one of Emily. She was, nevertheless, deficient in the 
energy which distinguished her sisters, and was alto- 
gether firailer in body, and more tender and serene in 
spirit. The devotional element in her nature was very 
strong, as will be seen from a perusal of her poems. Her 
sensitiveness was great, and apt to be wounded by the 
bitter experiences she was called upon to endure as one 
of the class of ill-treated individuals called governesses. 
Some of these experiences she has commemorated in her 
story ' Agnes Grey,' which, however, shows no notable 
powers of penetration and insight such as the world had 
been accustomed to look for in the authors bearing the 
cognomen of Bell. It is the most inferior of all the 
works written by the sisters, though interesting in many 
aspects. Possessed of a less determined will than 
Emily, Anne Bronte bore her sufferings patiently, and as 
the hour of dissolution approached, the terrors which 
had bound her spirit were dissipated, and she passed 
away, we are assured, in a calm and triumphant manner. 
Her last verses are most beautiful in sentiment, and 
worked out with considerable skill. It is a curious 
question how this gentle woman, nevertheless, came to 
write such a narrative as ' The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' 
which in some of its details is more offensive and 

R 2 



244 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

repulsive than the great piece de resistance of her next 
elder sister. The drunken orgies of Mr. Huntingdon 
and his companions cannot fail to be disgusting to the 
reader, vivid though the relation may be in colour. 
Most probably that portion of the story was suggested by 
the sad practical acquaintance the author had been 
compelled to make of the effects of the vice of drunken- 
ness in her brother Branwell. The sorrow entailed by 
his conduct weighed upon her deeply, and she gave 
relief to her feelings by picturing the sin, with all its 
hideous consequences and deformity, through the medium 
of fiction. It might be that she had hope such a 
revelation would be effective for good, and certainly all 
who read the story cannot but be affected by that 
wretched portion of it devoted to the delineation of a 
dnmkard. It is the strongest, the most striking part of 
the volume, and the mystery of its production by such a 
pure soul as Anne Bronte's can only be explained on the 
hypothesis we have assumed. The love of Gilbert 
Markham for the attractive and clever widow is a 
delightful episode, and excellently told, and the closing 
chapters go very far to redeem the unpleasantness we 
were compelled to encounter in the body of the work. 
As with Emily, Anne Bronte's strong point as a novelist 
was in the deUneation of one grand master passion from 



THE BRONTES. 245 



the moment when it entered into the soul to the time 
when it assumed complete and undisputed possession of 
it. We see this tyranny of passion in Heathcliff; we 
behold the tyranny again in another direction in Mr. 
Huntingdon, In both cases, however, it is finally left 
with as repulsive an appearance as the graphic pencils of 
the artists were able to command. No one can affirm 
that vice is ever winked at : it is, on the contrary, drawn 
without cloak or veil, in order that its devotees may be 
ashamed, or that those who are in danger of becoming 
its victims may be arrested and appalled. Such, we take 
it, is the great lesson of ' The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' 
and readers, even without sympathy for the author, 
v/ould be unjust to affirm that the lesson is not taught 
with sufficient distinctiveness and force. There are 
some things which only need to be described to be 
abhorred ; and this feeling probably led to the produc- 
tion of the work just alluded to. 

Of the little volume of poetry written conjointly by 
Currer, ElHs, and Acton Bell, and published before their 
prose works, there is not much to be said, except that it 
might teach a lesson to some of the poets of the present 
day, that the best inspiration after all is to be derived 
from contact with Nature herself. Many of these verses 
are not only Wordsworthian in their simplicity of ex- 



246 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

pression, but also in their reverent feeling for the Great 
Teacher of all true poets. They are rills which spring 
from the best source of inspiration, and, whilst they do 
not lose the idiosyncrasies of their respective authors, are 
all imbued mth intense love of outward beauty, and 
breathe of the native heath upon which they were in 
most part written. The poems which bear traces of the 
highest flight of imagination are undoubtedly those of 
Ellis Bell. Her genius here attains a more refined 
expression, without losing anything of its power. In 
several instances she has surrounded an old subject with 
new and delightful interest, and even where her choice 
has fallen upon more sombre subjects, the originality is 
so great that we are lost in admiration, and enter fully 
into the theme, glad of the new thoughts even when the 
old theme, per se, has no charms for us. Amongst the 
many fine things which have been said of Memory, 
where are there four lines which concentrate so much 
regret as are found embedded in this utterance ? — 

' I dare not let it languish, 
Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain; 
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish, 
How could I taste the empty world again?' 

This was no maundering of a simply sentimental spirit, 
but the outcome of a soul that had suffered, and had not 



THE BRONTES. 247 

lost its strength, though a deep sorrow encompassed it, 
and obscured its vision. There was not the light that 
shone in the old days, and the regret that has overtaken 
many a heart found a fine and truthful utterance in one 
who was gifted with a power of expression beyond her 
fellows. But the last lines which this wonderfully-gifted 
woman ever wrote strike us as being specially note- 
worthy. They are an address to the Deity : space fails 
us to quote them all, but as a specimen of their strength 
we may give the folluwing : — 

* Vain are the thousand creeds 
That move men's hearts ; unutterably vain ; 

Worthless as withered weeds, 
Or idlest froths amid the boundless main, 

To waken doubt in one 
Holding so fast by Thine infinity. 

***** 

Though earth and man were gone, 
And suns and universes ceased to be, 

And Thou wert left alone, 
Every existence would exist in Thee. 

There is not room for death. 
Nor atom that His might could render void ; 

Thou, Thou art Being and Breath, 
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.' 

We will not stay to investigate the theology of this 
passage, but as a specimen of poetic vigour it is well 



248 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

worthy of reprinting. The poems of Charlotte Bronte 
strike us as being the least excellent in the collection. 
Correct as they are in sentiment and expression, they lack 
the emphasis to be perceived in those of her sisters. The 
probability is that while Emily and Anne Bronte would 
have attained considerable eminence as poets, Charlotte 
would have wasted her powers on a branch of literature 
to which she was not quite adapted. In the case of 
Emily, the brief, decisive, epigrammatic form of expression 
suited her genius, just as the devotional cadence suited 
that of Anne, but Charlotte had better scope in a more 
didactic and extended style. One spirit breathes through 
the poems of Acton Bell — that which animates the 
trembling suppliant appealing to Heaven. They are all 
a single cry couched in different, but exquisite language, 
the cry of a dependent for guidance by a Sovereign 
hand. The moods may differ, but the substance of the 
souFs aspiration is the same, and there are few sweeter 
religious poems than that which contains the last 
thoughts and wishes of Acton Bell. The verses are so 
well known that we refrain from reproducing them ; but 
they may be taken as a good illustration of the spirit 
which animated the author, and form a touching farewell 
to a world in which she could never be said to have been 
at home. 



THE BRONTES, 249 



With regard to the position which the Brontes 
occupy amongst authors, we express ourselves with some 
diffidence. In summing up their general merits, and 
pronouncing upon their works, it must be done as a 
whole, and with no singling out of particular excellences. 
So, whilst Charlotte Bronte infinitely eclipses novelists of 
the highest reputation in isolated qualities — such as those 
we have already endeavoured to point out — it must be 
confessed that when we speak of her as the artist it can- 
not be as pertaining to the very highest rank. Her 
genius is intense, but not broad, and it is breadth alone 
which distinguishes the loftiest minds. But if she fails to 
attain the standard of the few writers who have been 
uplifted by common consent to the highest pinnacle of 
fame, she is the equal of any authors of the second rank. 
It is not too much to predict, in fact, that many mere- 
tricious works which have been commended for public 
admiration will lose in popularity, while those of which 
we have been speaking will increase. It is impossible 
for two of the works of Charlotte Bronte to fall out of 
our literature. They have been stamped as genuine 
gold and will keep continually in circulation. Works 
which fail to pass this ordeal are those which are either 
weak or false ; these are both strong and true. We 
obtain from the author of ' Jane Eyre ' no multitude of 



250 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

characters, but those we do get we become closely 
familiar with — and one being of veritable flesh and 
blood is worth a thousand insubstantial imitations. The 
novels deal with no particular forms of religious belief, or 
social questions, which the author would doubtless but 
have regarded as accidents of which she cared to take no 
account ; and hence we may aflirm that after the lapse 
of fifty years her works would read as freshly as when 
they first made their appearance. It was humanity she 
strove to produce ; not its creeds, crotchets, or pecu- 
liarities; and it is for this reason that her labour will 
triumphantly stand the test of time. The inner life of a 
soul is very much the same in all ages. Its hopes, its 
fears, and its joys do not change with the changing *• 
seasons and the revolving years. Ages pass away, and 
those writers and writings which have only appealed to 
transient phases of thought or particular changes of 
society are swept away as by a resistless current, whilst 
those who defy the potency of the waves are the gifted 
few who have shown the genuine power of interpreting 
nature, or of dealing with the passions of the human 
heart. 



HENRY FIELDING 



[macmillan's magazine] 



HENRY FIELDING. 

Henry Fielding, upon whom we place the distinction 
of being England's first great novelist, has for a cen- 
tury past been the constant subject of criticism. His 
surpassing merits have compelled even his most pro- 
nounced foes to assign him a lofty place in the art which 
he adorned. Attempts to depreciate his genius, because 
the moral backbone was lacking in some of his characters, 
have been repeatedly made, but with no pennanent 
effect upon his renown. For ourselves, we affirm at the 
outset that we consider him the Shakspeare of novelists. 
By this, of course, it will be understood, we do not imply 
that the sum of his genius was in any way comparable 
to that of the illustrious dramatist ; but that he achieved 
his results in the same way. He was the great artist in 
fiction because he was the great observer and interpreter 
of human nature. The novel will never be able to 
assume a position of equal importance with the drama, 
because of its comparative defectiveness of construction. 
But to such perfection as it is capable of being brought, 



254 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Fielding almost attained. It is, then, for the reason 
of the similarity of his method to that of Shakspeare 
that we have ventured to award him the highest title 
of eminence. It will be our endeavour, while not 
hiding his defects, to set forth the grounds of justifica- 
tion for the position we have assumed. 

With that perversity which only men of the same 
class or profession can exhibit towards each other, it was 
the fashion with literary men of Fielding's time — and 
indeed for many years subsequently — to compare him 
unfavourably with his rival, Richardson. It is singular 
how frequently individuals of professed literary acumen 
are willing to accept the dicta of others in matters of 
criticism. We are only just now losing the effects of this 
empiricism. Some unfortunate epigram, or some warped 
and fantastic judgment, has frequently been passed 
upon an author by those who were supposed to be 
competent judges, and the depreciatory observations 
have had the same effect upon the public mind as that 
of the pebble cast into the pool. The waters have been 
agitated and disturbed by ever-widening circles of dis- 
content, even to their utmost limits. Much laborious 
effort has been required to exorcise the prejudice thus 
estabhshed \ and it is just this power which a wrong 
judgment possesses over the minds of men in an equivalent 



HENRY FIELDING. 255 

degree with a right one, which makes criticism dan- 
gerous. In the hands of an incapable person it is an 
engine of incalculable mischief. And the fact that now and 
then this engine destroys its foolish owaier is no satisfaction 
for the wrong done to men of undoubted genius. The 
self-righting power of criticism certainly moves slowly. 
We are somewhat diffident, for example, when we find it 
necessary to differ strongly from such authorities as 
Dr. Johnson ; or at any rate should unquestionably 
have been so had we been amongst his contemporaries. 
Now that we are out of reach of his terrible voice and 
his overbearing demeanour, and regarding him thus from 
a safe distance, v/e do not find it so difficult to designate 
his capacity for judging in literary matters as often shallow 
and pretentious. Most people admit that his view of 
Milton is far from a just and worthy one of that sublime 
poet. He lacked the balance of mind, the intellectual 
equipoise, which is the foundation of the critical faculty. 
Consequently, with the lapse of time, his reputation in 
this respect will crumble away. Even the obsequious 
Boswell has ventured to insinuate that at times Johnson 
was so swayed by his feelings that, when making com- 
parisons between writers, he very often contradicted his 
intellect by his affection ; and, while saying the utmost 
he could of the inferior qualities of his personal favourite. 



256 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

ignored those which were superior in the person with 
whom he was ranged in comparison. Some such treat- 
ment as this was meted out to Fielding when he placed 
him in juxtaposition with Richardson. Let us reproduce 
his criticism. ' Sir,' said he, in that pompous manner in 
which we can fancy the burly old Doctor was wont to 
settle the affairs of men and mundane concerns generally, 
'■ there is all the difference in the world between characters 
of nature and characters of manners ; and there is the 
difference between the characters of Fielding and those 
of Richardson. Characters of manners are very enter- 
taining ; but they are to be understood by a more super- 
ficial observer than characters of nature, when a man 
must dive into the recesses of the human heart.' There 
is very little in this beyond saying that there is a great 
deal of difference between things which differ. Yet it is 
the kind of criticism which bears a deceptive sound with 
it, and acquires a reputation far in excess of its value, as 
being an expression of great apparent profundity. We 
shall hope to show that in his attribution of the one 
method to Fielding and the other to Richardson, Dr. 
Johnson came to an erroneous conclusion. For the pre- 
sent his observations lend some force to what has gone 
before, and it is an undoubted fact that the weakness of 
Fielding's moral character had much to do with Johnson's 



HENRY FIELDING. 257 

estimate of him. The formidable lexicographer was of 
that class of men who are ahiiost prepared to find fault 
with the sun because of the spots upon his surface. 

Horace Walpole was another of the critics who 
appear to have been either blinded by envy or unable to 
detect the effects of true genius, for we find that he was 
amongst the earliest detractors of Fielding — a prominent 
member of the school of depredators which endeavoured 
to humble him in the eyes of his contemporaries. It is 
pleasant, however, to think that some who bear great 
names have expressed the most unqualified admiration 
for the novels of our author, and the opinion of one 
master mind outweighs that of a hundred Walpoles. 
Byron gave it as his belief that ' Fielding was the prose 
Homer of human nature ; ' the far-seeing Goethe was 
delighted with his art ; and Gibbon demonstrated his 
literary sagacity by the following eloquent eulogium : — 
' Our immortal Fielding was of the younger branch of 
the Earls of Denbigh, who drew their origin from the 
Counts of Hapsburgh, the lineal descendants of Eltrico, 
in the seventh century Dukes of x^lsace. Far different 
have been the fortunes of the English and German 
divisions of the family of Hapsburgh ; the former, the 
knights and sheriffs of Leicestershire, have slowly risen 
to the dignity of a peerage ; the latter, the Emperors of 

s 



2 58 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Germany and Kings of Spain, have threatened the 
liberties of the Old, and invaded the treasures of the 
New World. The successors of Charles V. may disdain 
their brethren of England ; but the romance of " Tom 
Jones," that exquisite picture of human manners, will 
outlive the palace of the Escurial, and the Imperial 
Eagle of Austria.' Ornate as is Gibbon's language, it yet 
contains a judgment upon Fielding which has been in 
gradual process of verification since the words were 
wTitten. Most of those who have dispassionately con- 
sidered Fielding's works, and compared them with the 
works of his contemporaries and successors, will arrive 
at a conclusion much nearer to that expressed by Gibbon 
than that of the detractor, Horace Walpole. Of course, 
an argument which we have previously used for another 
purpose, may possibly be inverted and turned against 
ourselves. It may be replied that after all criticism is 
only the opinion of one man, though it is often acted 
upon by the multitude : and that judgments upon 
literary works attain an inordinate influence when de- 
livered by individuals of acknowledged reputation. 
Supposing this were to some extent true, every single 
reader has the opportunity of righting the matter so far 
as he is personally concerned. But what we do find 
valuable about the art of criticism, notwithstanding its 



HENRY FIELDING. 259 

numerous and manifest imperfections, is this, that it not 
unfrequently results in the deposition of much that is 
unworthy, and in the exaltation of some works which 
have been threatened with an undeserved obscurity. The 
critic is really nothing more than a leader of men ; he is 
supposed to have the capacity of leading in the right 
way, and when it is found that there is no light in him, 
and he is incapable of perceiving eternal Truth, we should 
withdraw ourselves from his guidance. We say, then, 
that while it is necessary for a man's self-culture , and in- 
tellectual independence that he should not accept off-hand 
the opinions of any critic, however eminent, in the bulk 
and without scrutiny, yet when judgments come to us 
stamped with the names of those who have devoted 
themselves to the art of criticism, they should at any 
rate receive candid, if searching, investigation. The 
destruction of the empiricism of. the critic need not 
involve the destruction of the eclecticism of the art. It 
must come to us as a friendly guide, and not as a 
tyrant. Our own opinion of Fielding , stands very little 
short of the most eulogistic which .has been expressed 
concerning him ; but we trust we have arrived at it out 
of no slavish regard for other minds. 

A glance at the novelist's life is almost a necessity, 
for it elucidates many points in connection with his 



26o POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

works which would otherwise be obscure. There has 
probably been no instance where the impress of the 
author's character has been more perceptible upon his 
waitings than that of Fielding. Some of his novels con- 
fessedly contain passages from his own life, with very 
little variation of detail. It will have been perceived 
by the quotation from Gibbon that Fielding was of 
illustrious descent, but the wealth of the family must 
have flowed into another channel, for he got none or 
little of it. He was born on April 22, 1707, at Sharpham 
Park, near Glastonbury. His father was a distinguished 
soldier, having served with Marlborough at Blenheim, 
and at length obtained the rank of Lieutenant-General. 
Besides being grandson of an Earl of Denbigh, this 
warrior was related to other noble families. The mother 
of Fielding was a daughter of Judge Gold, one of whose 
immediate descendants was also a baron of the Ex- 
chequer. Posterity may thus rest satisfied with the 
novelist's birth. Fielding, however, was not the only 
one of his family who appears to have been talented in 
literature. One of his sisters wrote a romance entitled 
' David Simple,' and was also the author of numerous 
letters, which, with the story, earned the encomiums of 
her brother. We cannot, of course, now say to what 
extent she may have been indebted to him in regard to 



HENRY FIELDING. 261 

these compositions. There is every reason to beHeve 
that he was most accessible to advice and sympathy, 
while his affection for his relatives was deep and sincere. 
This — in addition to a warm affection for children — is 
one of the redeeming traits in a character that was sub- 
sequently marred by many imperfections. Having re- 
ceived the earlier part of his education at home, from the 
Rev. Mr. Oliver, his private tutor — who is supposed to 
have been laid under contribution as the original of 
Parson Trulliber — Fielding was sent to Eton, where he 
became intimate with Fox, Lord Lyttelton, Pitt, and 
others, who afterwards acquired celebrity with himself, 
and at various crises in his history sustained towards him 
the part of real friendship. Unlike many literary men, 
whose scholastic career has been rather a Jiasco than 
otherwise, Fielding was most successful in his acquisition 
of knowledge, and when only sixteen years of age was 
acknowledged by his masters to possess a very sound 
acquaintance with all the leading Greek and Latin 
■svriters. Traces of this linguistic proficiency are again and 
again beheld in his novels. From Eton he went to the 
University of Leyden, where he immediately entered 
upon still wider and more liberal studies ; but at the 
threshold of his life the demon of misfortune which 
seems to have dogged his footsteps all through his 



262 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

career found him out. His university career closed 
prematurely, for his father, General Fielding, had married 
again, and having now two large families to keep out of 
a small income, ■ discovered that his original intention 
with regard to his son must be abandoned. This could 
not have been a pleasant intimation to a youth of twenty, 
who had just begun to feel the expansion of his faculties, 
and doubtless to be conscious that his future ' might 
copy his fair past ' as regards the accumulation of the 
stores of knowledge. Whatever laxity of mind overtook 
him in after life, the earlier years of Fielding show him 
to have been enamoured of learning, and in nowise 
averse to its routine. His spirit was keen and eager, 
and though at twenty years of age he was somewhat 
given to pleasure, he at the same time was always 
desirous to excel, and never allowed his recreations and 
amusements to bar his intellectual progress. 

Undismayed, however, by this rebuff of fortune. 
Fielding returned to London with comparatively little 
depression of spirits, and even this entirely cleared off 
as soon as he began to mingle in the society of the 
metropolis. It was here, as we shall presently see, that 
greater dangers afterwards attended him, which he was 
less able to withstand than the assaults of adversity. 
Fielding was especially distinguished for all those gifts 



HENRY FIELDING. 263 

which make a man the dariing of the circle in which he 
moves : and accordingly we learn that in a very few 
months after his settlement in London he was an esta- 
blished favourite of its great literary and dramatic Hons, 
Lyttelton and Garrick amongst the number. Under the 
auspices of the latter he speedily commenced writing 
for the stage, and at the age of twenty, as Mr. Roscoe 
tells us in his excellent life of the novelist, produced his 
first comedy of ' Love in several Masques.' We shall 
postpone what comments we have to make upon this and 
Fielding's other works till the close of our remarks on 
his personal history. Necessity compelled him to turn 
to the writing of comedies, for though he was supposed 
to be enjoying an allowance of some 200/. per annum, 
he made a joke about this income to the effect that it 
was a sum which really anybody might pay who would. 
At this juncture some of our most briUiant wits were 
writing for the stage, so that the young author might be 
pardoned for the degree of nervousness he felt on entering 
upon the same career. Indeed, although his genius was 
not naturally that of the dramatist, the probability is 
that what aptitude he really possessed for it was some- 
what cramped by the circumstances in which he was 
placed, and the diffidence with which he undertook a 
profession that at the time enjoyed two of its keenest and 



264' POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



wittiest ornaments. It appears, nevertheless, that the 
comedy already mentioned, and his second one of ' The 
Temple Beau,' were well received, though his success 
was by no means proportioned to his increasing em- 
barrassments. That his efforts at comedy were well 
appreciated is testified to by Lord Lyttelton's assertion, 
when some one was alluding to the wits of the age, that 
'■ Harry Fielding had more wit and humour than all the 
persons they had been speaking of put together.' This 
language seems to have been concurred in by others 
who were continually looking out for some new thing in 
that age of wit and humour. Fielding must have worked 
with great rapidity, for during the nine seasons in which 
he wrote for the stage, and before he attained his 
thirtieth year, he had written no fewer than eighteen 
pieces, reckoning both plays and farces. 

It was in the midst of his unsatisfactory career in 
connection with the stage — unsatisfactory because of its 
restlessness and its recklessness — that an event occurred 
which promised to change the whole tenor of his life for 
ever ; and had Fielding been as strong in his will as he 
was in the perception of what is right, we should now 
probably have been able to write him in different 
characters. In his twenty-seventh year he fell in love 
with a young lady named Cradock, residing at Salisbury. 



HENRY FIELDING. 265 

She was possessed of both beauty and accomplishments, 
but her fortune was small. Fielding, however, never 
hesitated in the pursuit of an object wherein his heart 
was deeply enlisted, and accordingly he married Miss 
Cradock with her small fortune of fifteen hundred 
pounds. The old, old passion had thus again its good 
old way. Shortly after his marriage his mother died, and 
Fielding became possessed of a Httle estate in Dorset- 
shire, worth some two hundred a year. Hither he bore 
his bride, and made many resolves to lead the life of a 
model country gentleman. But with all his afiection for 
his wife — and it was genuine and sincere — he was led by 
the example of others into great extravagance. Setting 
up his coach, and living as though he could make one 
pound do duty for a hundred, it can evoke no surprise 
that at the end of three years he discovered all his 
patrimony to be gone, and found himself faced by the 
terrible spectre of absolute poverty which he himself had 
raised. It is held by many that genius should never be 
tried by the ordinary standpoints of thrift and virtue. 
This is a position to which we can give no kind of coun- 
tenance ; but what we may look at with regard to 
Fielding, as some mitigation for his conduct at this 
period, are those social qualities for which he was so 
famous. Though they ultimately proved his pecuniary 



266 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

ruin, they were marked by a generosity which cannot but 
beget in us a pity for the man himself. The deHghts of 
society were more than he could bear ; he entered into 
them with a zest which completely ovennastered his 
aplomb, and for the time being made him their slave. 
So far this was unquestionably bad ; but his case must 
not be confounded with that of the essentially vicious, 
with the man who never had Fielding's lofty appreciation 
for the good, and never even felt the most spasmodic 
striving after an ideal. To the one we can extend our 
unfeigned sympathy, to the other only our unmitigated 
abhorrence. As the sequel to the difficulties which 
overtook Fielding, he was compelled to resume the study 
of the law, which he had at one time hoped to abandon 
for ever. Entering himself at the age of thirty as a 
student of the Inner Temple, he at once began to work 
with a will, in order to recover himself from his embar- 
rassments. His devotion to his studies was most 
praiseworthy, and, as he had great natural shrewdness, 
there is every reason to believe that in the legal profession 
he would have been most successful. But one cause or 
another continually interrupted him, and whatever he 
undertook through Hfe seems to have met with a pre- 
mature ending. For his failure, however, ultimately to earn 
distinction at the bar, he was himself in the first instance 



HENRY FIELDING. 267 

responsible. He was not only called, but assiduously 
went the Western circuit for two or three years, though 
briefs appear to have been very scanty with him. Sud- 
denly, and in consequence of an intimation that he 
proposed issuing a work upon law, his practice increased 
immensely, but only, we are told, to decline again as 
rapidly. Meanwhile physical retribution began to 
overtake him for the convivial years he had spent in 
London society ; he was seized with gout, in addition to 
which, his constitution was much weakened and 
enfeebled ; though in justice it must be said that late 
hours of study, with literary work executed under great 
pressure, acted as additional causes in the general 
break-up of his system. The upshot of it all was that 
after ceasing the active exercise of his profession, and 
\ATiting two large volumes (a ' Digest of the Statutes at 
Large '), which remained for many years unpublished, he 
finally quitted the bar, and returned to literary pursuits. 
As might be expected from the nature of his talents, he 
contributed for a time most successfully to periodical 
literature. But a period of great distress quickly came 
upon him. With failing health, which interfered some- 
what with the operations of his brilliant intellect, his 
mind was still racked with the consciousness that his wife 
and family were entirely dependent upon his exertions. 



268 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Heroic he undoubtedly was under difficulties, but there 
are some odds against which men cannot possibly 
contend. Note, nevertheless, how the true spirit of the 
man shone through all the darkness which surrounded 
him at this trying moment. His biographers, one and 
all, bear testimony to the native strength of his mind. 
We are assured that ' when under the most discouraging 
circumstances — the loss of comparative fortune, of health, 
of the fruits of years of successful toil ; his body lacerated 
by the acutest pains, and with a family looking up to 
him for immediate support — he was still capable, with a 
degree of fortitude almost unexampled, to produce, as it 
were, extempore^ a play, a farce, a pamphlet, or a news- 
paper. Nay, like Cervantes, whom he most resembled 
both in wit and genius, he could jest upon his mis- 
fortunes, and make his own sufferings a source of 
entertainment to the rest of the world.' He did, in fact, 
at this precise period, and in the darkest hour of his 
misery, indite a rhyming letter to Sir Robert Walpole, 
with himself and his position for its subject ; which is 
full of the most humourous allusions. One cannot help 
thinking, while reading this incident, of the much later 
humourist of our own time. Hood, whose experience was 
almost its counterpart, with the exception of the 
difference in the cause of Hood's suffering, a naturally 



HENRY FIELDING. 269 

frail constitution being the sole reason for his bodily 
decay. Fielding was now wTiting because, as he ex- 
pressed it, ' he had no choice but to be a hackney wTiter 
or a hackney coachman/ This was the man who had 
been the pride of London fashionables, who had doubt- 
less kept a hundred tables in a roar, and whose very 
enjoyment of life for its own sake was so keen as to 
cause Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (his second cousin) 
to say in comparing him \\dth Steele, that ' he ought to 
go on living for ever.' When \mting for the stage, 
Fielding was frequently obliged to pass off work which 
did not satisfy his critical judgment. For this he was 
now and then remonstrated with by Garrick, and he once 
replied that the public were too stupid to find out where 
he failed. The consensus of the pit, however, is tolerably 
keen, and when the audience began on this occasion to 
hiss the weak part of the comedy Fielding was astonished, 
exclaiming, ' They have found it out, have they ? ' An 
anecdote characteristic both of the man and his times 
is told of the novelist which affords a clue to some of his 
pecuniary difficulties, though it is a credit to his gene- 
rosity. It appears that some parochial taxes had long 
remained unpaid by Fielding, a fact which need not 
greatly surprise us. At length the collector — as tax- 
collectors always will — became rather threatening in his 



270 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

aspect, and Fielding went off to Dr. Johnson, that friend- 
in-need of the impecunious, to obtain the necessary sum 
of money by a literary mortgage. He was returning 
when he met with an old college friend who was in even 
greater difficulties than himself He took him to dinner 
at a neighbouring tavern, and emptied the contents of 
his pockets into his hands. Being informed on returning 
home that the collector had twice called on him for the 
amount, Fielding replied, ' Friendship has called for the 
money, and had it; let the collector call again.' Other 
anecdotes could be cited illustrating the bonhomie and 
natural benevolence of the novelist's character. 

It was during the period in which Fielding was most 
busily employed upon his literary ventures that he 
married a second time (having lost a few years before 
the lady to whom it has been seen he was devotedly 
attached) ; and we now find him bending to his work 
with redoubled energy. But all his assiduity was in 
vain, and he was compelled to announce with regret that 
he could no longer continue the publication of 'The 
Covent Garden Journal ' — a paper he was then editing. 
The mental and physical strain had been too severe, and 
there were now added to his other ailments the alarming 
symptoms of dropsy. The only hope held out by his 
physician for the prolongation of his life was that he 



HENRY FIELDING. 271 

should go abroad ; and this, upon the earnest soHci- 
tations of his friends, Fielding consented to do. Por- 
tugal having been recommended, he tore himself from his 
wife and children, and set sail for Lisbon on June 26, 

1754. 

At this juncture, noting that Fielding makes refe- 
rences to the matter in the introduction to his ' Voyage,' 
we may allude to him in another capacity, and one 
in which the liteiary man has seldom an opportunity of 
exhibiting himself In 1748 he had been appointed 
Justice of the Peace for Westminster and Middlesex, an 
office which, as we learn, was then paid by fees, and was 
very laborious, without being particularly reputable. As 
affording some idea of the nature of the work which fell 
to the accomplished Justice, we may recapitulate certain 
facts narrated by himself. While preparing for a journey 
to Bath, which it was hoped would result in his resto- 
ration to health, there was placed upon his shoulders no 
enviable piece of work. When nigh fatigued to death by 
reason of several long examinations relating to five 
different murders committed by gangs of street robbers, 
he received a message from the Duke of Newcastle to 
wait upon him the next morning upon business of great 
importance. Though in the utmost distress he attended, 
and found that what was desired of him was a statement 



272 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

of the best plan he could devise for the suppression of 
robberies and murders in the streets, offences which had 
become alarmingly common. Fielding submitted a plan 
that was highly approved of by the Duke, who promised 
to lay it before the Privy Council. All the terms of the 
proposal were complied with, one of the principal being 
the depositing of 600/. in its author's hands. At this 
small pecuniary charge he undertook to demolish the 
gangs complained of, and also to put civil order in -such 
a state of security that it should be thenceforth impossible 
for these gangs to enrol themselves in bodies and pursue 
their nefarious occupations. It is interesting to note, as 
demonstrating Fielding's executive ability in his new 
post, that in a few weeks the whole gang of cut-throats 
was entirely dispersed. But the occupation of Justice 
was anything save a pleasant one, while its remuneration 
was paltry in the extreme. Fielding himself says that by 
refusing to make the most of his position, by composing 
instead of inflaming the quarrels of porters and beggars, 
by not plundering the public or the poor, and by re- 
fusing to take a shilling from a man who would most 
undoubtedly not have had another left, he had reduced 
' an income of about 500/. a year of the dirtiest money 
upon earth to Httle more than 300/.,' a considerable 
portion of which remained with his clerk. It was 



HENRY FIELDING, 273 

acknowledged on all hands that Fielding made an 
excellent justice, and it is moreover affirmed that his 
charge to the grand jury, delivered at Westminster on 
June 29, 1749, is to be regarded, for that time, as a very 
able and valuable state paper. It was most lucid and 
searching, as were certain legal investigations which he 
subsequently made. Furthermore, it may be noted that 
in a ' Proposal for the Maintenance of the Poor,' of 
which he was the author, Fielding was the first to make 
the recommendation of a county workhouse, in which 
the different objects of industry and reformation might 
be united. The paper also contained numerous sug- 
gestions creditable to Fielding's magisterial sagacity, 
some of which have since been carried into effect. Alto- 
gether he appears to have justified the high eulogium 
passed upon him in the capacity of Justice of the Peace. 
The journey to Lisbon was of no avail for the 
novelist ; his poor, shattered constitution had already 
failed beyond hope of recovery ; in fact, it is stated that 
he was a dying man when he reached the port. He 
lingered, however, for two months after his arrival, in 
gi-eat suffering, and at length died in the Portuguese 
capital on October 8, 1754, being then only in his forty- 
eighth year. It is not too much to say that in that 
brief span of life Fielding had exhausted botli the mental 

T 



274 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

and physical energy of the seventy years' limit allotted 
to humanity ; and when we consider the wearing and 
excited existence he led in the metropolis, it is almost 
marvellous that he should have been able to accomplish 
so much intellectual labour. There is something 
touching in the fate which compels a man whose genius 
was so native to the soil of England, to die in a foreign 
land, away not only from those he loved, but from the 
scene of his literary triumphs. The last tribute of 
respect paid to the novelist emanated from the Chevalier 
de Meyrionnet, French Consul at Lisbon, who not only 
undertook his interment, but followed his remains to the 
grave, and celebrated the talents of the deceased in an 
epitaph. The people of the English Factory in the city 
also erected a monument to him. In Fielding's absence 
from England, he was not forgotten by his friend Mr. 
Allen, who, after his death, educated his children, and 
bestowed pensions both upon them and their widowed 
mother. This Mr. Allen was the original oi one of 
Fielding's best and most satisfactory characters. 

The title of honour which we have accorded to our 
author at the outset may seem to need some justification 
when it is remembered that De Foe and Richardson were 
writers at and before the same period, and had produced 
novels anterior to those of Fielding. De Foe, however, 



HENRY FIELDING. 275 

can scarcely be treated as the ordinary novelist, or put 
into competition with the race of writers of fiction : he 
was rather the fierce polemic and satiric author. In the 
fictitious element he was, of course, remarkably strong ; 
his art was undoubtedly good, but it was the art of the 
inventor, and not the narrator. Crusoe was a real 
creation, but not in the same sense as Tom Jones, He 
was a greater effort of the imagination, and excites the 
faculty of wonder in us accordingly to a greater degree ; 
but while Tom Jones was not a being of such strange 
singularity as Crusoe, he became so realisable to the rest 
of humanity that his conception must be deemed more 
admirable from the novelist's point of view. Then, 
again, De Foe seems to let it be understood; from the 
general drift of his writings, that he meant them to have 
a personal interest, that they were to be saturated by his 
own individuality, that his scorn, his anger, his sorrow, 
were to shine through them. His energy, his irrepressi- 
bility, his misery, all combined to make him one of the 
strongest \mters of his age ; but he must yield the palm 
to Fielding in the art of novel writing. The latter had 
individuality too, but it was individuality of a higher 
stamp than De Foe's. It selected human beings not from 
the imagination, but from the species itself, and the 
types are as unmistakably real, and more true, though 

T 2 



276 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

not so astounding in conception to the general con- 
sciousness. 

With regard to Richardson, while, as we have said, 
it was the fashion at one time to extol him as the 
superior of Fielding, this is a position which has now 
been abandoned by the best critics. The man in 
possession has necessarily always the advantage of the 
man who is desirous to succeed him, and Fielding having 
written one novel in imitation of his predecessor, had to 
struggle for some time against that fact, which was 
continually hurled against him. Richardson was evi- 
dently a man of high moral principle ; indeed, he always 
strikes us as a perfect compendium of innocence and the 
virtues. We are willing not to see in him what others 
have seen, merely the priggish moralist, but he comes 
terribly near earning that character. Yet let us not be 
unjust to him. His ' Pamela ' is a very original work, 
and its author deserves no small meed of praise for 
daring to make it a pure one in an age so strikingly 
celebrated for vice. But the fact that Richardson com- 
menced to write at fifty years of age, precludes the idea 
of his having possessed lofty creative genius : talent may 
slumber, as in his case, but genius never. In some 
respects, ' Clarissa ' is a stronger novel than the one 
which preceded it, but here again it is difficult to avoid 



HENRY FIELDING. 277 

the idea that we are in church, Hstening to the homiUes 
of the clergyman. The spiritual psychologist is at work 
again ; he is flinging his code of morals at us on every 
page. We could admire the strength of his virtuous 
characters without the endless panegyrics upon morals to 
which we are treated, but we implore in vain. The 
strings of conscience were what Richardson desired to 
lay hold upon, and to do this he thought it necessary to 
follow both virtue and vice from their very inception, and 
to write, as it were, their autobiography. How powerfully 
he has done this let his characters of Clarissa and Love- 
lace testify. But the permanent impression remaining is 
that, in spite of his acknowledged power and Puritanical 
tendencies, he is not one who loves his fellow-men so 
much as one who woUld wish to see them made better 
by the rigid exercise of those virtues to the exposition of 
which he has devoted his talents. Courage, talent, 
purity, ail these Richardson exhibits, but little genius. 

How greatly dissimilar to him was Fielding ! In- 
heriting the frailties of humanity, and feeling himself 
bound up with its joys and sorrows, he was gifted with a 
mind incredibly rich in resource. Richardson had some 
of the weaker elements of woman's nature mingled with 
his own, but Fielding had its real tenderness, its com- 
passion. Tripped up repeatedly by his follies, his 



278 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

nature never hardened ; he was the same genial spirit as 
ever. Betwixt the chariot of excess and the stool of 
repentance a great portion of his time seems to have 
been passed. He had the voice of mirth for those who 
wished to rejoice, and the tears of sympathy for those 
who were called upon to suffer. He flung no sermons 
at the head of men and women overtaken in their sins, 
though he never wrote one book wherein he failed to let 
it be gathered that he honoured virtue and scourged 
vice. He was not the kind' of man to be the favourite of 
Richardson. More magnanimous than the latter, though 
not so severe in his morality, his knowledge of humanity 
was at once wider and deeper, and he could gauge it to 
its greatest depths. His invention and his naturalness 
were far superior to those of Richardson. His mind was 
more plastic, his wit keener, his intellect altogether of 
a superior order. He had, in one word, what Richard- 
son lacked, genius. In his boyhood the marvellous gift 
began to develop itself, and in after years it achieved its 
greatest results with the apparent ease by which the 
operations of genius are often attended. In Richardson 
there burned the lambent flame which neither surprises 
nor destroys ; in Fielding there was the veritable Hght- 
ning of soul. These, then, are some of the reasons why 
we have assigned to Fielding the right to be considered 



HENRY FIELDING. 279 

our first great novelist : but others will be apparent as we 
proceed. 

It is fair to assume that, to a very large extent, those 
works which attain the widest repute must be national 
in their character — that is, must bear an unmistakable 
impress of the national genius upon them. See how that 
is borne out : Shakspeare, Bunyan, and Fielding in 
England, Goethe in Germany, Voltaire in France, have 
each produced individual works in their various 
languages which have acquired world-wide celebrity. 
And are not all those works imbued w^th national 
characteristics ? Do we not find the strength, and at the 
same time the singular nobility and elasticity of the 
English mind, developed in the writings of the three 
authors whom we have named ? Are not the speculative 
thought and transcendentalism of Germany adequately 
embodied in Goethe? Does not Voltaire sum up in 
himself the force, the point, the fickleness, and the 
scepticism, which lie at the core of the French character? 
An English Voltaire, or a French Goethe, is a sheer 
impossibility. We feel it to be so in the very nature of 
things. And with respect to Fielding, he has taken root 
in foreign soil because of his distinctly national character, 
and yet, at the same time, cosmopolitan genius, as 
genius in its highest form must always be. We have no 



28o POETS AND NOVELISTS, 

writer to whom we can point who excels Fielding in the 
art of setting forth his characters by means of strong, 
broad lights and shadows. The drawing is masterly and 
accurate. And nothing deters him from telling the whole 
truth. He is full of a sublime candour. His narrative 
is no mere record of events, but personal history of the 
most effective description. Whoever comes in the way 
of his pencil must submit to the most rigorous and un- 
flinching representation. However great, rich, or power- 
ful, he will be drawn exactly as he is — himself, the 
veritable man, or, as Cromwell wished to be limned, with 
the Vv-arts on his face. We are getting, through these 
observations, to the secret of the success of 'Tom Jones.' 
It is marked by the characteristics to which we have 
been referring, and all the world has acknowledged the 
truthfulness of the work. Where is the novel in exist- 
ence which has reached so many corners of society ? 

As it is considered, and with reason, its author's 
masterpiece, we may well devote some space to its 
examination. Notwithstanding its vast popularity, it is 
regarded in two lights by opposing classes of readers. 
The first, those who are overcome by its wonderful 
power, have no eye for blemishes; the second, those 
who are afraid of seeing plain truths stated in a plain 
way, and men and women represented with their masks 



HENRY FIELDING. 281 

off, have nothing for it but terms of reproach, on the 
ground of what they call its indecency. With the excep 
tion of certain phrases which are redolent of the period 
at which Fielding wrote, it is one of the purest books in 
our literature. Pure, we afhrm, in its general tendency ; 
and surely that is the way in which any work should be 
regarded. If we adopt the objectionable principle of 
selecting words and phrases which are obnoxious to the 
sensitive ear, and from them forming an adverse opinion, 
what will become of some of the finest effusions of 
Chaucer and Shakspeare, whom these same purists 
doubtless cherish most closely? We are inclined to 
agree with the distinguished critic who asserted that the 
man who read ' Tom Jones ' and declared it an 
essentially evil book, must be already corrupt. Of 
course, to the evil there is a ministry of evil, which can 
find sustenance everywhere, degrading even good so that 
it may become food for their debased natures. But to a 
really healthy nature we can conceive no ill accruing 
from an acquaintance with this novel. It is but fair, 
however, in a matter upon which there is some difference 
of opinion, to hear the author himself speak, before 
delivering judgment. In dedicating 'Tom Jones' to 
Lord Lyttelton, Fielding trusts that he will find in it 
nothing v/hatever that is prejudicial to religion and 



282 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

virtue ; nothing inconsistent with the strictest rules of 
decency, or which could offend the chastest eye. It was 
obvious that the author had little fear that he would be 
charged with indecency, and he goes on to declare that 
goodness and innocence had been his sincere endeavour 
in writing the history. Further, besides painting virtue 
in the best colours at his command, he was anxious to 
convince men that their true interests lay in the pursuit 
of her. What more exalted end could an author have 
in his work than this ? and we are bound to affirm that, 
read in the right spirit, the novel has fulfilled its writer's 
original intentions. He has no scruple in laughing men 
out of their follies and meannesses, for he is a satirist as 
well as a romancist. But throughout the work he has 
done nothing contrary to the rules which a great artist is 
bound to follow. The book is indeed full of overwhelm- 
ing excellences in this respect of art. Look how each 
character is painted in ! There is no scamping with the 
humblest individual honoured by reproduction on the 
canvas. The same truthfulness to life which we find in 
the portraits of Mr. Allworthy and Sophia Western we 
find in the depiction of a maid or a man-servant at an 
inn. With the enthusiasm which is as necessary to art 
as is the air we breathe to humanity, the artist labours at 
the minutest details till he brings all to perfection. Then 



HENRY FIELDING. 283 

the story appears rounded and complete, with no patch- 
work to mar its artistic effect. Dr. Warburton gave 
expression to our novelist's merits in this regard 
excellently when he said : ' Monsieur de Marivaux in 
France, and Mr. Fielding in England, stand the fore- 
most among those who have given a faithful and chaste 
copy of life and manners ; and by enriching their 
romance with the best part of the comic art, may be said 
to have brought it to perfection.' 

M. Taine, whose criticism may too often be described 
as the sound of ' a rushing mighty wind,' never exhibited 
his faults and his excellences more strikingly than he 
does in his observations upon Fielding. Nearly always 
vigorous, and endowed with a jerky, but oftentimes an 
admirably epigrammatic, force, the French critic is now 
and then erratic in his judgments. His eye travels faster 
than his mind. He perceives, and writes what he 
perceives before he has given full time for reflection. 
For instance, he says in describing Fielding : ' You are 
only aware of the impetuosity of the senses, the up- 
welling of the blood, the effusion of tenderness, but not 
of the nervous exaltation and poetic rapture. Man, such 
as you conceive him, is a good buffalo ; and perhaps he 
is the hero required by a people which is itself called 
John Bull.' This is a smart use of a synonym, but one 



284 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

incorrect both as regards what the individual noveHst 
suppHes, and what the nation demands. The whole 
gist of M. Taine's complaint against Fielding is that he 
wants refinement. ' In this abundant harvest with which 
you fill your arms, you have forgotten the flowers.' But 
Fielding is quite as refined as Cervantes, to whom the 
critic awards the possession of that excellence. Let 
anyone who wishes to be convinced that Fielding 
possesses refinement read the chapter in ' Tom Jones ' 
which gives a description of Sophia. There will be found 
both the poetry and the grace which M. Taine desires. 
But the critic has misrepresented Fielding in other 
respects. Not only has he declared the author to be 
without natural refinement, but he has denied this to all 
his characters. After the lapse of more than a hundred 
years, the character of Sophia Western stands forth one 
of the purest, sweetest, and most attractive in literature. 
We seem to see the very bloom of health upon her 
cheek, a bloom only equalled by the perfections of her 
mind — not so much intellectual perfections simply as 
those other virtues and charms which make woman the 
idol of man. Compare this character with those which 
crowd too many of the novels of the present day. How 
absurd are the latter as living representations, and stiff 
as wooden puppets in the hands of their literary parents ! 



HENRY FIELDING, 285 

Tinged with false sentiments, lacking in real femininity, 
they form as great a contrast as could be imagined to the 
true woman we find depicted in Sophia Western : — 

' Her pure and eloquent blood 
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, 
That one might almost say her body thought.' 

This dainty conceit of Dr. Donne's exactly expresses the 
most perfect heroine drawn by Fielding. In Jones him- 
self, too, we may discover some traces of that refinement 
which lifts a man out of the merely animal category. 
The namby-pamby element was entirely absent from him, 
and he was in the habit of calling a spade a spade — a 
habit much in vogue at the time in which his life was 
fixed. We should join in the verdict delivered by Mr. 
Allworthy, after he had carefully studied Jones's character, 
viz., ' in balancing his faults with his perfections, the 
latter seemed rather to preponderate.' It must not be 
forgotten that Fielding never intended to depict a per- 
fect hero ; he would have shuddered at the thought. 
Whilst he ' would nothing extenuate, or set down aught 
in malice,' he at the same time never failed to place in 
full relief — with not a shadow less or more than they 
deserved — all the characters which he took upon him- 
self to dehneate. Remembering this, we feel at once 
how admirably he fulfilled his task in the picture of 



286 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Western, the jolly, rollicking squire. Had he softened 
in any degree the violence, prejudice, passion, and 
boisterousness attaching to this man, its value as a 
faithful picture of a Somersetshire squire would have 
been utterly destroyed. He is no worse than Falstaff, and 
why should we yield to the one conception the merit we 
deny to the other ? But the world has within its keeping 
all characters which have been truly realised, and will 
not let them die. There is much of the bull in Western's 
constitution ; and it is meant that there should be, for 
he is typical. Fielding's power has lain principally in 
supplying types. Other portraits are drawn in 'Tom 
Jones ' (besides those we have named) with remarkable 
skill. There is Mr. AUworthy, upon whom the author 
has laboured with affectionate zeal, and who appears as 
one of the most finished specimens of his class of 
humanity. He has the generous heart which prompts to 
benevolent deeds, and the ready hand to carry out what 
that heart dictates. He is himself a strong protest 
against the assertion that Fielding takes no thought of 
virtue as regards its inculcation upon others, for one 
instinctively feels that he is purposed by the author to be 
represented as a being worthy of imitation. Precisely 
the opposite lesson is intended to be taught by the 
portrait of Blifil. The villainy of this character is 



HENRY FIELDING. 287 

singularly striking, and when the book is closed, the 
reader will admit that he has followed the fortunes of but 
few beings who have been rendered more despicable in 
his eyes. This unredeemed scoundrel, whose meanness 
is matched only by his cowardice, is flayed alive accord- 
ing to his deserts. And yet the novelist has exercised 
no prejudice in the matter ; he has simply turned tbe 
heart inside out, and made its fetid character apparent 
to the world. There is no artistic bungling, because 
there has been no attempt to tamper with the character. 
Fielding has allowed knavery to show itself, just as on 
the same page he keeps open the way for innocence and 
virtue. 

The genius of Fielding was not strongly developed 
until the appearance of ' Joseph Andrews,' which, as is 
well known, preceded the publication of ' Tom Jones.' 
Before the production of his first novel, the talents of 
this great wit and humourist seem to have been devoted 
to the hurried writing of brilliant dramatic and other 
pieces, which had in them but Uttle positive assurance of 
a lasting fame. One can well understand, however, 
what a flutter the launching of ' Joseph Andrews ' must 
have caused in London society. The author's leading 
idea was to write a story in imitation of the style and 
manners of Cervantes ; and it was his intention therein 



288 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

to set forth the folly of affectation, which he regarded as 
the only tme source of the ridiculous. Great vices, he 
considered, were the proper objects of detestation, and 
smaller faults of pity ; but affectation held its own place 
aloof from both. Referring to the scope of his work, he 
has the following remarks : ' Perhaps it may be objected 
to me that I have, against my own rules, introduced 
vices, and of a very black kind, into this work. To 
which I shall answer : first, that it is very difficult to 
pursue a series of human actions, and keep clear from 
them. Secondly, that the vices to be found here are 
rather the accidental consequences of some human 
frailty or foible, than causes habitually existing in the 
mind. Thirdly, that they are never set forth as the 
objects of ridicule, but detestation. Fourthly, that they 
are never the principal figure at that time on the scene ; 
and, lastly, they never produce the intended evil.' All 
which is very sound and true, but it availed him nothing; 
for did not the leading characters of his novel imme- 
diately strike people as strong and pronounced caricatures 
of those in the novel by Richardson which had just been 
all the rage ? It was in vain for him to assert that he 
meant to vilify or asperse no one, or to copy characters 
hitherto conceived, with the addition of considerable 
burlesque colouring. Richardson himself, on reading 



HENRY FIELDING. 289 

through the work, felt what he described as its covert 
satire keenly, and, it is said, never forgave Fielding for 
this novel. The closing portion of it was held to put the 
question of satiric aim beyond doubt, when Fielding 
makes the lady conduct herself in such a manner that, as 
one critic observes, ' she enacts the beggar on horseback 
in a very superior manner.' Yet, making allowance for 
whatever element of parody there may be in it, ' Joseph 
Andrews ' is a remarkable book for the individuality ot 
its characters. We might search in vain for a more 
worthy or more vividly-drawn personage than Parson 
Adams. His natural goodness and simplicity of heart 
endear him to us beyond measure, and must mitigate our 
condemnation of his share in certain scenes which are 
scarcely seemly to the cloth. This character was 
evidently a favourite of Fielding's, and in his plea on 
Adams's behalf to his brother-clergymen, for whom, ' when 
they are worthy of their sacred order, no man can 
possibly have a greater respect,' the author says : ' They 
will excuse me, notwithstanding the low adventures in 
which he is engaged, that I have made him a clergyman ; 
since no office could have given him so many oppor- 
tunities of displaying his worthy inclinations.' Of the 
originality of Parson Adams, there is little to say, for 
criticism is disarmed ; he is perfect in that respect 

u 



290 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Many commentators on Fielding have been unable to 
discover a resemblance of even the faintest character 
between ' Joseph Andrews ' and the immortal work of 
Cervantes. But making allowance for the variation in 
scenes and incidents, we consider that Fielding's novel 
displays a great deal of the breadth of treatment pertain- 
ing to the Spanish master. It is somewhat similar in 
conception also, being a mock-heroic narrative, and in 
it the romance and the apologue are blended in happy 
proportions. The spirit of Cervantes has been caught, 
while the author has avoided a professed imitation, and 
several of the ludicrous catastrophes which occur in the 
course of the story give full weight to the assertion that 
Fielding had in his mind's eye the author of ^ Don 
Quixote' when he wrote. The humour of Fielding's 
history is rich and yet inoffensive ; it possesses not the 
slightest tinge of bitterness, and is distinguished by a 
remarkable mellowness. Whatever else the work de- 
monstrated, or failed to demonstrate, one thing was clear — 
it predicted the rising of a humourist of the highest 
order, and had its authorship been unknown on its first 
publication, there was but one man to whom the finger 
of society could point as its literary father. Of ' Tom 
Jones,' the second novel written by Fielding (taking them 
in the order of their appearance), we have already spoken 
at length. 



HENRY FIELDING. 291 

The third novel from this master-mind of fiction is 
one to which a pecuHar interest attaches. Whilst it is 
considered to be, in point of talent, inferior to the others, 
it is noteworthy as being a transcript of a portion of 
Fielding's family history. We refer to the story of 
'■ Amelia.' Its fault, as a novel, seems to us to lie in the 
absence of any supreme interest in the several characters 
individually. They are not boldly drawn : and the fact 
that the gold was not of so rich a quality as that 
previously dug from the same soil, immediately induced 
the detractors of Fielding to rejoice over the supposed 
decay of his powers. They forgot, in their spite, that 
Shakspeare only produced one ' Hamlet,' and that if 
Fielding had written no other work but his crowning 
novel, that alone had ensured him his place amongst the 
gods. But, in truth, while ' Amelia ' is not by any means 
equal to its predecessors, it exhibits many graces of 
style, and its pathos is deep and true. The style is not 
so strong nor the humour so ceaseless, so abundant ; but 
there are frequent genuine touches of passion in it, and 
some scenes of truthful domestic painting. Captain 
Booth is a strange mixture of weakness and fidelity : his 
character is supposed, and truly, to bear some resemblance 
to Fielding's own ; there was the same readiness in both 
to fall a victim to their own passions, and the same deep 



292 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



tenderness when they had recovered themselves. Booth 
is trustful and devoted, and worships the woman of his 
love. ' If I had the world/ he says, ' I was ready to lay 
it at my Amelia's feet ; and so, Heaven knows, I would 
ten thousand worlds.' He is not the man to inspire 
admiration so much as to provoke an affectionate 
interest. Herein is one of the failures of the novel : the 
hero is not strong enough to occupy the centre. We 
expect to do something more with a hero than condole, 
laugh, or shed with him an occasional tear. He must 
appeal to wider sympathies. He must be greater than 
ourselves in some way, no matter what ; but never 
beneath or even on a level with us. The same trait of 
devotion is very conspicuous in Booth's wife Amelia, who 
is supposed to be the representation of Fielding's first 
wife. We can partially agree with M. Taine in his 
criticism of this character when he says that Amelia is 
' a perfect English wife, an excellent cook,' so devoted 
as to pardon her husband for his numerous failings, and 
' always looking forward to the accoucheur.' This may 
be accepted as true with regard to a great number of the 
English wives of that period, though there were many of 
a superior calibre, such as we could imagine Sophia 
Western might make. Amelia is happy because she is 
typical — typical of a portion of English wives, but not by 



HENRY FIELDING. 293 

any means a universal type. The novel in which these 
two amiable beings appear may be beautiful, but it lacks 
the pith which stronger characters would have given to 
it. We have to travel away from these to a subordinate 
individual in the story to discover a genuine point of 
interest — which is a great transgression of one of the 
cardinal principles of novel writing. Fielding, neverthe- 
less, did not prove by this story that he had written 
himself out. It is neither so brilliant nor so incisive as 
his other novels, and has no concentration of force or 
continuity of plot, and for these reasons it cannot be 
expected to take so worthy a position ; but it is without 
doubt far above mediocrity. 

Incensed by the adulation paid to successful villainy. 
Fielding wrote the history of 'Jonathan Wild the Great.' 
In his day, more than in our own, perhaps, the world 
worshipped at the shrine of success — certainly of a lower 
order of success — nor stayed to enquire too closely into 
the cause of any rapid rise of fortune, however dis- 
reputably acquired. It is our general rule not to 
measure a man by the inherent qualities of good which 
he possesses, or by the claim which his genuine acts of 
benevolence establish upon us, but by the figure he is 
able to make in society, even though that gilded exterior 
be a covering for much that is base and contemptible. 



294 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

An income of ten thousand a year will always cover a 
multitude of sins. Virtue itself has a terrible struggle to 
maintain its own against it. And this insane feeling of 
adulation of material success was, as we have observed, 
carried still further and still lower in Fielding's day. It 
went so far as to shed a halo round the head of the man 
whose natural place was the felon's cell, provided he 
were clever enough to evade the grasp of justice, and 
preserve a bold and brilHant outward appearance. This 
hollowness in the conditions of society annoyed Fielding 
deeply ; he was moved to his innermost depths of 
contempt by it ; and in his apology for treating the 
subject of the great criminal, Jonathan Wild, he explains 
the motives which led to the production of this extra- 
ordinary piece of satirical writing. * Without considering 
Newgate,' he remarks, ' as no other than human nature 
with its mask off, which some very shameful writers have 
done — a thought which no price should purchase me to 
entertain — I think we may be excused for suspecting that 
the splendid palaces of the great are often no other than 
Newgate with the mask on. Nor do I know anything 
which can raise an honest man's indignation higher than 
that the same morals should be in one place attended 
with all imaginary misery and infamy, and in the other 
with the highest luxury and honour. Let any impartial 



HENRY FIELDING. 295 

man in his senses be asked for which of these two places 
a composition of cruelty, lust, avarice, rapine, insolence, 
hypocrisy, fraud, and treachery, was best fitted, surely his 
answer must be certain and immediate. And yet I am 
afraid all these ingredients, glossed over with wealth and 
a title, have been treated with the highest respect and 
veneration in the one, while one or two of them have 
been condemned to the gallows in the other.' This, of 
course, is the fault of society, which rarely estimates a 
man for his intrinsic worth, whatever groove he moves in. 
He may be as gigantic a fraud as was ever palmed off 
upon the human race, but if he only manages to dazzle 
the eyes of those who are beneath him on the ladder, 
nothing will be whispered about his peccadilloes. Let 
him make one slip, however, and lose his hold, and a 
thousand gazers will rejoice in his fall, declaring that 
they always knew it would come. It was to help in 
destroying, therefore, the bombastic greatness of society, 
that Fielding wrote his 'Jonathan Wild.' It is marked 
by a singular perception of motives, and a careful dis- 
section of those unworthy passions which attain so great 
a sway over men. He invariably keeps one leading 
point in view, viz., the proper distribution of strict 
justice amongst his various characters. The hero, who 
flourishes in apparent security before our eyes through 



296 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

the course of the narrative, cannot escape his just doom 
at the last. On the gallows he fulfils the proper ends of 
his being, which was corrupt and. unreformable. Field- 
ing's position as magistrate undoubtedly furnished him 
with many ideas for this history, which he failed not to 
make the most of, though as a composition, regarded in 
its entirety, it is somewhat deficient. It was written for 
a special purpose; it fulfilled that purpose admirably; 
but beyond that fact, and that it contains much of its 
author's sarcastic genius, the fragment is not in any 
other aspect very noticeable. 

Little has been said at any time of Fielding as a 
writer of verse, and yet he appears to have penned a 
considerable amount of rhyme in his day. But his verse 
is much inferior to his prose, his strength seeming to 
evaporate under the influence of rhyme. He has not 
the pohsh or the strength of Swift in this respect ; but he 
might have made some figure as a rhymester had he ad- 
hered to the Muse. What he has left behind him is 
necessarily completely dwarfed by his excellence as a 
writer of fiction. It will not be without interest, not- 
withstanding, if we glance slightly at his attempts in verse. 
In a poem on ' Liberty ' he gives vent to a noble exor- 
dium upon the good which she has accompHshed for the 
human race, and for the progress in arts which we 



HENRY FIELDING. 297 

owe chiefly to her. Then comes the following apos- 
trophe : — 

' Hail, Liberty ! boon worthy of the skies, 
Like fabled Venus fair, like Pallas wise. 
Through thee the citizen braves war's alarms, 
Though neither bred to light, nor paid for arms ; 
Through thee the laurel crowned the victor's brow, 
Who served before his country at the plough ; 
Through thee (what most must to thy praise appear) 
Proud senates scorn'd not to seek Virtue there. ' 

In form and conception the poem reminds us some- 
thing of Goldsmith, being, however, in parts less pastoral 
than he, but having more force. The whole concludes 
with the following lines, which will stir an echoing senti- 
ment probably in the mind of every reader : — 

' But thou, great Liberty, keep Britain free. 
Nor let men use us as we use the bee ; 
Let not base drones upon our honey thrive. 
And suffocate the maker in his hive.' 

Other poetical effusions by Fielding, while not exhibit- 
ing the strength and width of view which we gain in 
this poem, show considerable tenderness of feeling and 
delicacy of treatment. He has a set of verses ' To 
Celia,' supposed to be addressed to the lady whom he 
afterwards married, and which he closes thus happily, 
after descanting upon the hollowness of the world and 



POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



the sickness of heart which the knowledge of it has pro- 
duced in him : — 

' Ask you then, Ceha, if there be 
The thing I love ? My charmer, thee : 
Thee more than life, than light adore, 
Thou dearest, sweetest creature, more 
Than wildest raptures can express, 
Than I can tell, or thou canst guess. 
Then though I bear a gentle mind, 
Let not my hatred of mankind 
Wonder within my Celia move, 
Since she possesses all I love.' 

Other poems could be cited which betray a lively 
fancy ; and as a specimen in another vein we may repro- 
duce his lines for Butler's Monument. Fielding was 
moved to great indignation at the treatment of Butler 
by an ungrateful court, and his sarcasm took the follow- 
ing form : — 

' What though alive, neglected and undone, 
O let thy spirit triumph in this stone ! 
No greater honour could men pay thy parts. 
For when they give a stone they give their hearts.' 

In contrast to Fielding's poems in the didactic and 
sentimental vein, we may turn, lastly, to a specimen of 
the humourous. When labouring under pecuniary 
embarrassments, he addressed an appeal to Sir Robert 
Walpole, in which, under a playful guise, he administered 



HENRY FIELDING, 299 



a rebuke to that great minister for his neglect. In this 
rhyming missive the following stanzas occur : — 

'• Great sir, as on each levee day 
I still attend you — still you say — 
" I'm busy now, to-morrow come ; " 
To-morrow, sir, you're not at home ; , 
So says your porter, and dare I 
Give such a man as he the lie ? 
In imitation, sir, of you 
I keep a mighty levde too : 
Where my attendants, to their sorrow, 
Are bid to come again to-morrow. 
To-morrow they return no doubt. 
And then, like you, sir, I'm gone out.' 

In other verses the poet presses Walpole to assign 
him some appointment ; he is not particular what, as will 
be gathered from the following cosmopolitan choice 
which he gives to the Minister : — 

* Suppose a Secretary o' this Isle, 
Just to be doing with for a while ; 
Admiral, gen'ral, judge, or bishop ; 
Or I can foreign treaties dish up. 
If the good genius of the nation 
Should call me to negotiation, 
Tuscan and French are in my head, 
Latin I write, and Greek — I read. 
If you should ask, what pleases best ? 
To get the most, and do the least. 
What fittest for? — You know, I'm sure, 
I'm fittest for — a sine-cure.' 



3O0 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Of Fielding as a dramatist, there is, perhaps, no 
necessity to say much ; and what must be said is not of 
the most flattering character. His comedies are not so 
suggestively indecent as those of Wycherley, but there is 
a good deal of actual impurity in them. The license of 
the stage, to a large extent, has been pandered to, while 
the literary talent displayed is not of so high an order as 
that which shines through his novels. One point should 
be remembered in connection with these comedies and 
farces — that they were written under great pressure, 
their production having been a matter of urgency with 
the author. A good deal of the wit of Fielding is en- 
countered, but altogether they are not equal to his fine 
intellect. Smart sayings flash from the page now and 
then, as in ' Don Quixote in England,' where he remarks 
that ' Every woman is a beauty if you will beHeve her 
own glass : and few if you will believe her neighbours'.' 
Again : 'All men cannot do all things ; one man gets an 
estate by what gets another man a halter ; ' which is a 
very acute remark upon the disjointed conditions of 
English life. In 'The Modern Husband,' a comedy 
whose general scope must be condemned as being 
worthy of the worst period of the Restoration, the fol- 
lowing reflection occurs : ' Never fear your reputation 
while you are rich, for gold in this world covers as many 



HENRY FIELDING. 301 

sins as charity in the next : so that, get a great deal and 
give away a little, and you secure your happiness in both.' 
A remark made by Sir Positive Trap in one of Fielding's 
comedies seems to have anticipated the conduct of 
society in the nineteenth century, or if not of the whole 
of our present society, of more of it than we like to 
admit, if whispers from its sacred circle are to be 
believed : ' I hope to see the time,' said the worthy 
knight, ' when a man may carry his daughter to market 
with the same lawful authority as any other of his 
cattle.' Of all Fielding's dramatic pieces 'Pasquin' 
seems deserving of the highest praise, and it touches 
pretty freely upon the political corruptions of the times. 
Considered in the light of a satire alone it may be pro- 
nounced very successful, showing its author as usual at 
his best in the unsparing use of the lash. It is of course 
difficult to say where the line should be drawn upon the 
stage in regard to satire. The power of the press is not 
so strong as that of personal ridicule, and it is on record 
that the great Chancellor Hyde was ruined at court by 
the absurd manner in which he was mimicked in farces 
and comedies, an end which never would have happened 
to him by mere abstract criticism. Fielding was, upon 
occasion, exceedingly free in his use of this weapon of 
ridicule ; and however deficient his comedies may be in 



302 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

those qualities which are admitted to sustain the drama 
upon the boards, there are many passages in them of un- 
questioned brilHancy and power. His strong capacity 
for parodying the great is demonstrated in more than one 
of the comedies ; and it is but just to add the observation 
that what is good and virtuous in itself is always exempt 
from ridicule. He perceived the moral fitness of things 
so clearly that he never transgressed propriety in this re- 
spect. Shocked we may occasionally be when he repro- 
duces too faithfully the follies and vices of his period, 
but never through the whole of his works do we remem- 
ber a single sneer at what is good, honest, or noble. 

In ' A Journey from this World to the Next ' Fielding 
has been the forerunner of a host of works of our own 
day, of which the reading public has become unconscion- 
ably weary. Undoubtedly the best of these modern 
efforts to describe another world is '■ Erewhon ; ' but it is 
singular to find Fielding, upwards of a hundred years ago, 
describing what took place in another sphere, after the 
death of the supposed writer of the narrative. It shows 
what little originality there is in the matter of great bold 
outlines of thought in the world ; and doubtless many 
things which we consider new and of great merit in our 
own day have been done in ages past, and in much 
superior style. We do not mean to imply in any way 



HENRY FIELDING. 303 

that the work we have named and other similar works 
which followed it resemble in detail Fielding's * Journey,' 
but simply desire to point out how early the author of 
'Tom Jones' was in the field in this very idea of describ- 
ing another world, for which there appears at present to 
be an unreasonable mania. His work is both curious 
and interesting, and forms excellent occupation for a 
quiet hour's literary relaxation. 

Authors are measured in various ways ; some are 
fitted for the great mass of ordinary readers alone ; 
others find their devotees in a few choice intellectual 
spirits ; but of few can it be said that they are favourites 
of both. When we are able to affirm that this last is 
the true position of a writer we have paid him the highest 
tribute it is in our power to offer. It means that we are 
speaking of lofty genius ; for that is really great which 
can satisfy the philosopher and the peasant at the same 
moment. ' Hamlet ' is the product of such a mind ; so 
is the ' Pilgrim's Progress,' and to these books must in- 
dubitably be added the masterpiece of Fielding. It 
possesses that salt of genius which will arrest dissolution. 
Years roll on and only add to the imperishable character 
of all such works. What novelist has delighted a greater 
number of individuals than Fielding, or satisfied more 
with his exquisite delineations of human nature? We 



304 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

know what his influence has been over millions of un- 
distinguished men ; but look for a moment at the estima- 
tion in which he is held by the conspicuous descendants 
of his own craft. Dickens always had the most unfeigned 
admiration for him, and has described the keen relish 
with which he devoured his works as a boy. This love 
grew as he grew, and there was no novelist for whom 
Dickens cherished such a feeHng of respect for his singu- 
lar power as Fielding. It is said that he took him for 
his model ; but if so he has failed in catching his spirit, 
notwithstanding his profound admiration ; for in truth to 
us the two methods — those of Fielding and Dickens — 
seem to differ most widely. That is a question, however, 
which cannot be discussed here, and we pass it by with 
the observation that Fielding's power over Dickens was 
unquestionably immense. The same remark applies to 
Thackeray, whose genius, far more than that of Dickens, 
resembled Fielding's own. * Wliat,' said the author of 
' Vanity Fair,' when speaking of his great predecessor in 
fiction, * an admirable gift of nature it was by which the 
author of these tales was endowed, and which enabled 
him to fix our interests, to waken our sympathy, to seize 
upon our creduHty, so that we believe in his people. 
What a genius, what a vigour ! What a bright-eyed in- 
telligence and observation ! What a wholesome hatred 



HENRY FIELDING. 305 

for meanness and knavery ! What a vast sympathy ; 
what a cheerfulness ; what a manly relish of life ! What 
a love of human kind ! What a poet is here, watching, 
meditating, ])rooding, creating ! What multitudes of 
truths has the man left behind him ! What generations 
he has taught to laugh wisely and fairly 1 ' And again, 
speaking of his works as a whole — ' Time and shower 
have very little damaged those. The fashion and orna- 
ments are, perhaps, of the architecture of that age ; but 
the building remains strong and lofty, and of admirable 
proportions — masterpieces of genius and monuments of 
workmanlike skill' Who is there who cannot subscribe 
to this exalted opinion of our author, first given utterance 
to in its full boldness and generosity by Gibbon, and 
perpetuated by Thackeray ? Whether we regard Field- 
ing in the light of an observer of human nature or as a 
humourist, he has but few rivals. In the matter of the 
combination of both these excellences in the garb of 
fiction, we fearlessly reassert that he is entitled to the 
position assigned him in the outset. He is at the 
head of his race. Other novelists may show a particular 
aptitude, he is the one being who has no aptitudes, for 
his art is universal. The temple he has reared has no 
dwarfed or stunted columns ; it is perfect and symmetri- 

X 



3c6 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

cal, and of towering and magnificent dimensions. Years 
have not defaced its beauty or shaken its foundations. 

Another tribute to those already paid to this great 
king of fiction — more ephemeral, perhaps, than some, 
but as sincere as any — is now laid at his feet. Henry 
Fielding might have been a better man, but it is impos- 
sible not to love him, and to recognise shining through 
him that glorious light of genius which grows not dim 
with Time, but whose luminous presence is ever with us 
to cheer, to reprove, to delight, and to elevate. 



ROBERT BUCHANAN 



[contemporary review] 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 

That the present age is unfavourable to the production 
of the highest and most permanent forms of poetry, is an 
observation which has now become almost trite ; yet it 
may be doubted whether, in making it, we have ever 
grasped its full weight and significance. What is the 
nature, and what the extent, of the opposition offered 
by an age of progress to the development of the dra- 
matic and epic genius ? In the first place, rapid general 
progress means that we exist in an essentially middle- 
class era, which is detrimental to any thought that goes 
deeper than the slight intellectual operations necessary 
to procure material success ; and in the second place, 
progress means restless activity, and an utter inability to 
secure that calm essential to the conception and comple- 
tion of works destined to survive the lapse of centuries. 
Such are the positions generally assumed, we believe, in 
this matter, and on the first blush they appear to have 
very plausible support. Yet upon careful consideration 
they must be pronounced untenable. The imperiousness 



3IO POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

of genius will set both at defiance, for in this respect of 
times and seasons genius knows no law. It is like the 
wind of Heaven ; 'it bloweth where it listeth/ and neither 
man nor circumstance can arrest its advancement to 
ripeness and perfectibility. The facts of history, also, are 
against the propositions we are combating. The times 
signalised by the greatest achievements in arts and com- 
merce have been those in which we have beheld the great 
luminaries of thought, stretching away down from the 
flourishing of the oldest poets to the Elizabethan age. 
What centur}^ in the world's history was not a century of 
progress ? and why should we, because the progress differs 
in degree and somewhat in kind, arrive at the hasty con- 
clusion that the decay of genius is in accord with the 
ratio of progress ? Further, observe to what this idea 
commits us. It implies, so far as England is concerned, 
that the days of her intellectual supremacy are over. 
The shopkeeper has come and the poet must depart. 
And what is our prospect for the future ? For it must be 
remembered that we are but regarded as on the threshold 
of progress ; and if the present period is so unfavourable 
to the exercise of the poetic faculty in its sublimest 
forms, what can we look for in the next, and the next ? 
We cannot believe it impossible that even now that 
repose could be attained which should leave the Seer 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 311 

calm and unmoved amidst the thunder and the roar of 
contemporary life. 

Whether or not the nineteenth century has produced 
a poet of the very first rank may be an open question, to 
be judged differently by different minds ; but there can 
be no doubt that they are wrong who disparage it in 
comparison with the two preceding centuries. Given 
the brilliant Pope, the stately Dryden, and the gentle 
Cowper, the eighteenth century is still far behind our 
own, which has produced its Wordsworth, its Byron, and 
its Shelley, not to mention our principal living poets. 
Neither can Milton, solitary in his grandeur, weigh down 
this latter list of names, and bear off the palm from us in 
favour of the seventeenth century. Alone, he is far 
greater than any of them — Wordsworth most nearly ap- 
proaching his altitude perhaps — but he shone in the 
firmament ' a lonely star.' We have to go back still ano- 
ther century to come to that age which not only eclipses 
the present but every other in the world's annals for the 
splendour of its imaginative literature. 

The mode of criticism in vogue tends to discourage 
rather than assist the higher development of the poetic 
faculty. And in this, to a great extent, criticism but 
follows the thought of the age, which is sharp and 
shallow, not broad and deep. That which cannot be 



312 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

grasped by the nineteenth-centuty intellect without many 
throes of labour, is to be thrown on one side as unsuit- 
able, and missing the tendencies of the time. Literature 
must be a relaxation, not a study ; the palate must be 
tickled, not the whole body made strong. We are in the 
transition period. We have had our Shakspeare, and 
do not want another; what readers desiderate now is 
mosaic-work which shall attract attention and admiration 
by its finish. We do not know, but we should imagine 
that even the Poet-Laureate must have at times felt 
depressed by the inattentiveness, and almost positive 
dislike, of the age to what is loftiest in his vocation. In- 
sensibly, too, all our authors gradually bow to the in- 
fluences of the period, which prove too strong for their 
individual feelings and convictions in matters of art in 
poetry. It is with the hope of recalling the attention of 
oui best writers to the fact that if we proceed in the 
same degree of decline which the past thirty years have 
witnessed, our poetic literature will have been emasculated, 
that we have ventured to offer these somewhat general, 
but we believe necessary, observations. Mr. Matthew 
Arnold asks, in one of his poems — 

* What shelter to grow ripe is ours ? 
What leisure to grow wise?' 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 313 

And then, further on in the same poem, he declares 
that- 

^ Too fast we Hve, too much are tried, 
Too harass'd to attain 
Wordsworth's sweet cahn, or Goethe's wide 
And luminous view to gain.' 

This is another reiteration of the idea we are desiring to 
demolish. It is, in reality, a fallacy. If ever there was 
an age when the opportunity was given to write epic 
poems this is the one. Since the time that the last 
great epic was penned there have been some half-dozen 
events, or series of events, in civilised Europe, which 
afford scope for the most inspired Seer who could arise. 
These events must naturally suggest themselves to any 
person who indulges the most cursory thought as to 
the rapid growths and tremendous convulsions which 
have occurred in continental empires. And indepen- 
dently of this, there is one period of English history 
a' one — the period of the sublime Milton — which seems 
to us to contain within it the sources of dramatic and 
epic poetry such as can scarcely be found in any other 
cycle of this kingdom's existence. Napoleon Buona- 
parte, again — the great Napoleon — will undoubtedly at 
some time or other, perhaps two centuries hence, attract 
the first genius of the time, who will be enthralled by the 



314 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



immensity of his theme in this respect, that it as clearly 
marks off the age of the man by his own absorbing and 
diastrous eminence as does the Hfe of any other unit of 
humanity such past age as may have been overshadowed 
by the splendour of his name. There are considerations 
which ahvays prevent an immediately contemporary topic 
from being made available for epic or dramatic poetry. 
But why need this disconcert our living poets, who can 
find so many other subjects, not quite contemporary, 
which are more suitable for their pens ? Criticism would 
not be altogether in vain if it could rouse the race of 
our professed Seers from their lethargy. An opportunity 
is within their grasp such as seldom falls to the lot of 
genius. Partly with a view to estimate the work which 
has already been accomplished by one of our Eng- 
lish poets, and partly to indicate what he is capable 
of attaining, we have selected for some comments 
the collective works of one of the youngest of our 
present-day singers. 

Robert Buchanan has himself given us a sketch of 
his own life, and has supplemented that by a paper on 
what he calls ' My own Tentatives,' which is in reality 
one of that most interesting class of articles which poets 
can give us — viz., a view of the inner life — inadequate, 
it may be, but still a recital of the moving springs of 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 315 



their endeavours and ambitions. Mr. Buchanan is 
egotistical ; but till we can find a poet who is not, 
there is no necessity to be severe upon him for that. 
Egotism is not a crime ; neither is it a blunder till it 
becomes offensive in its manifestation, and it certainly 
cannot be said to be so in the present case. The poet 
is one of the few men whom we can bear to hear speak of 
themselves : so much of the success of his work depends 
upon the thermometer of his own feeling. The eagerness 
which every person displays to learn something of the 
actual life of our great writers cannot be founded alto- 
gether in a morbid sensationalism. What would we give, 
for instance, for the details relative to the personnel of 
Homer and Shakspeare, if written by themselves ? And 
the same feeling, chastened only in degree, we cherish 
towards all whose works have enlightened and ele- 
vated mankind. It is the tribute which ordinary hu- 
manity pays to genius — to that quality which stands 
between them and the Almighty, elucidating the mysteries 
of the latter, and gathering up for presentation to the 
Unseen the woes and the hopes of man. We are dis- 
posed, then, always to forgive the poet any tendency he 
may exhibit towards a personal garrulity, assured that 
the offence will be a thousand times condoned by the 
riches he has to communicate. It is not proposed to 



3i6 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



make further reference to Mr. Buchanan's life (as con- 
currently related in his charming sketch of poor David 
Gray) than is absolutely necessary for the exposition of 
his manner in his earlier poems. But undoubtedly, we 
imagine, his life had a considerable influence in mould- 
ing the character of his works. When Gray was but a 
boy, it appears that he made the acquaintance of Robert 
Buchanan at Glasgow, and that the two spent some years 
in dreaming and thinking together. At a very early period 
Gray seems to have contracted a morbidly exaggerated 
opinion of himself, affirming that the dream of his life 
would not be realised unless his fame were ultimately to 
equal that of Wordsworth ; and he had even dared to 
set up as models, which he had some hope of rivalling, 
two still greater men — Shakspeare and Goethe. The 
danger which attended these floating ideas, if they should 
assume the substantial form of disease, was quickly per- 
ceived by Mr. Buchanan. But he was helpless. Another 
was to solve the difficulty, and the interposition of Death 
averted the great trial which would have resulted when 
Gray awoke from liis brilliant dreams, to find his gor- 
geous castle dismantled. Early in i860 the two young 
men were brought face to face with a necessity which, 
according to the temper and grit of a man, either makes 
him the slave or the master of the world. Poets being 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 



amenable to the ordinary laws of nature, they discovered 
that to live they must work. One day Gray said to his 
companion, ' Bob, I'm off to London.' ' Have you funds ? ' 
asked Buchanan. ' Enough for one, not enough for 
two,' was the response. ' If you can get the money any- 
how, we'll go together.' The journey was arranged, but 
owing to a mistake they travelled separately, though they 
arrived in London about the same time. Now began 
the bitterness of existence. The sensitive Scotchman 
Gray found that in the hurry of London life there were 
none who turned aside to regard him as a great Seer, or 
even as one who promised to become such. Accordingly, 
though he received many individual kindnesses from one 
or two friends, we find him waiting, ' What brought me 
here ? God knows, for I don't. Alone in such a place 
is a horrible thing. People don't seem to understand 
me. Westminster Abbey ; I was there all day yesterday. 
If I live I shall be buried there — so help me God I ' 
The strife went on — bitter indeed, as only those can 
testify whose experience has been of a similar character. 
The forecasting of the future, which ought to have pre- 
ceded their advent, now became an absolute necessity 
when it seemed of little use. There were, of course, 
many positions open, but nobody willing to induct them 
into possession, and after severe vicissitudes we find one 



3i8 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



of them becoming a supernumerary at a theatre. It is 
impossible to follow the melancholy story in all its de- 
tails ; suffice it to state, that, after numberless trials and 
buffetings, the disease of consumption, which had been 
latent in Gray, rapidly developed itself, and he was 
carried off in his twenty-fourth year. After his decease, 
one of the most beautiful epitaplis ever written was 
found amongst his papers, penned by himself in viev/ of 
his dissolution. Mr. Buchanan appears to have cherished 
for his friend one of those attachments which are an 
honour to human nature, and which cannot fail to have 
effect in the growth of character. In verse which de- 
serves to live (viz., in the poem ' To David in Heaven'), 
the survivor of these two friends endeavoured to set forth 
the virtues of the dead, and at the same time to embalm 
him with the spices of remembrance and affection. The 
rest of Mr. Buchanan's life as regards his work is suffi- 
ciently known to the public. He early gained its 
ear, and has steadily maintained himself in its favour, 
ripening, as poets should do, with personal experience 
and observation of the world. 

One result of strenuous labour and of material de- 
privation is to deepen the pathos of life. And when the 
individual is a poet the experience is doubly valuable to 
him. A poet without pathos — either natural or acquired 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 319 



— seems to us one who will utterly fail in reaching the 
highest ends of his being. It was anguish which sub- 
limated the genius of Dante and led to what is grandest 
in his divine compositions. His was an example of what 
we should call acquired pathos — that is, the pathos 
begotten in the spirit through suffering. An example of 
natural pathos is to be found in Wordsworth, whose life 
was singularly free from the ordinary sadnesses of huma- 
nity, but who yet possessed, as it has been so beautifully 
expressed, and he might have claimed for himself — • 

' Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.' 

Take the choicest spirits in our poetic record, the most 
mirthful, unembarrassed, and careless of their species, 
and there will be found running through all their natures 
this subtle yet sweet chord of sadness, which makes 
them so tender to the race, and sympathetic withal. The 
poet is commissioned to feel for humanity, and without 
pathos he would surely have no more to communicate 
than other men. It is his real voice, and that which 
makes him the sweet singer of creation. 

Many years have now elapsed since j\Ir. George 
Henry Lewes— no mean judge in these and cognate 
matters — affirmed that Mr. Buchanan was a genuine 
poet. At the time, those who guarded the gates of 



320 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

literature were divided in opinion, though by far the 
greater bulk of the critics — and that the most competent 
portion of them — welcomed the new-comer as a true 
singer, one who had something new to communicate. In 
looking to the volume which evoked the varied opinions 
now, ' Idylls and Legends of Inverburn,' one is struck 
with this thought — the courage of the man who should 
dare to challenge the world on subjects which in them- 
selves appeared to possess but few of the elements of 
poetry, and whose treatment in the hands of most must 
certainly result in disastrous failure ! But the fact alone 
that the author was so successful in investing the simplest 
themes with an interest which could not be gainsaid 
appeared to us, and does now after the lapse of many years, 
an undoubted proof of genius. There was not placed 
before the critics a volume of verse on heroic or old- 
world subjects — subjects which of themselves are in- 
stinct with the poetic feeling — treated with all the glow 
and fancy which could be thrown about them. The 
facts were simple in the extreme. A youth whose 
heart was large — large in the sense of active poetic sym- 
pathy — and whose imagination was quick, took from 
the lives of certain characters which had crossed his 
path, or with whose inner experience he was some- 
what acquainted, incidents which had apparently no 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 321 

special significance whatever for other men, and said to 
himself that he could draw from thence what should be a 
delight and profit to the world. And he succeeded, not- 
withstanding the fact that he worked in a style which had 
hitherto been unappreciated, and which was remarkable for 
its simplicity. The world had been accustomed to regard 
poetry as a trimmed garden, discovering colour, beauty, 
symmetry — it seemed to have forgotten that it might also 
be a forest, or an irregular hill- side, with naked rocks and 
the majesty of trees. These Idylls have little in them to 
recommend them to those who regard poetry simply as 
the art of turning melodious periods ; but they possess 
the higher qualities of imagination and the music of 
natural emotion. Above all, they exhibit the first re- 
quirement in a poet — viz., insight, that faculty which is the 
initial point in his isolation from the rest of the species. 
The poems are not great in themselves, but they un- 
doubtedly exhibit those qualities which, rightly fostered, 
develop into greatness. The thing which was of most 
importance to the writer to secure he was successful in 
accomplishing ; he caused the reader to reflect, after the 
reading of the poems, upon the gifts which had been ex- 
hibited in their production. Let us look for a moment 
at one or two of these Idylls. Take the story of Willie 
Baird, narrated by the schoolmaster of Inverburn. Told 

Y 



322 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

in the simplest of blank verse, there is yet a grip about it 
which enrols its author at once amongst the players on 
the harp of the human heart. The old man tells of the 
influence of little Willie upon his spirit, chastening and 
refining it. He imagines that he has seen the face some- 
where before in the beauteous life of the north ; and then 
he says as the result — 

' Alone at nights, 
I read my Bible more and Euclid less. 
For, mind you, like my betters, I had been 
Half-scoffer, half-believer ; on the whole, 
I thought the life beyond a useless dream 
Best left alone.' 

Then the boy's philosophy came on, and one day he 
puzzled the old schoolmaster by asking, as he clasped 
his white hands round the neck of the collie Donald, ' Do 
doggies gang to Heaven ? ' a question to be repeated in- 
definitely without answer. It is interesting to note the 
gradual return of the old man to a well-grounded faith, 
engendered so beautifully, and almost consummated by 
the death of Willie. The language in which the history 
is unfolded is sustained, and abounds in imagery which, 
if not so lofty as we find in some of Mr. Buchanan's other 
works, is true and appropriate. Of a higher stamp, how- 
ever, is the poem ' Poet Andrew,' which depicts the 
short sad life of young Gray. The story is told by the 



ROBERT BUCHANAN, 323 

father of Andrew, a simple-hearted weaver, who does not 
understand the gift wherewith his son is dowered. The 
character of the father is drawn with great power and 
individuahty, and the whole poem, shining with the 
tenderness which springs from a loving heart, is full of 
the deepest human interest. Andrew's parents endea- 
voured to teach him common-sense, and when they were 
reproached for having a poet in the house, exclaimed, 
* A poet ? God forbid ! ' somewhat dubious as to the full 
meaning and import of their terrible possession. But at 
length they discovered Andrew's printed poems, with 

' Words pottle-bellied, meaningless, and strange, 
That strutted up and down the printed page, 
Like Bailies, made to bluster and look big ' — 

a graphic description of what was doubtless a source of 
terror to the old man, who had never been guilty of such 
a heino'is offence as writing aline in his life. The youth 
was grumbled at in vain for his tendencies to ruin, and 
at length he left his home and went up to the great City, 
where he was followed by a mother's deep love and a 
father's solicitude, in spite of his apparent wrongheaded- 
ness. But the dark shadow drew near — tlie trouble that 
was deeper than all others. The poet came home to die, 
and the scene is depicted with a pathos which has rarely 

Y 2 



324 POETS AND NOVELISTS, 

been excelled for calm and yet strong simplicity. Thus 

speaks the broken-hearted father : — 

' One Sabbath day — 
The last of winter, for the caller air 
Was drawing sweetness from the barks of trees — 
When down the lane, I saw to my surprise 
A snowdrop blooming underneath a birk, 
And gladly plucked the flower to carry home 

To Andrew. 

***** 

Saying nought, 
Into his hand I put the year's first flower, 
And turn'd awa' to hide my face ; and he — 
He smiled— and at the smile, I knew not why. 
It swam upon us, in a frosty pain. 
The end was come at last, at last, and Death 
Was creeping ben, his shadow on our hearts. 
We gazed on Andrew, call'd him by his name 
And touch'd him softly — and he lay awhile, 
His een upon the snow, in a dark dream, 
Yet neither heard nor saw ; but suddenly, 
He shook awa' the vision wi' a smile. 
Raised lustrous een, still smiling, to the sky. 
Next upon us, then dropt them to the flower 
That trembled in his hand, and murmured low. 
Like one that gladly murmurs to himsel' — 
" Out of the Snow, the Snowdrop — out of Death 
Comes Life ; " then closed his eyes and made a moan, 
And never spake another word again.' 

It will be admitted, we think, by the most exacting, that 
an exquisiteness and also an emotional fervour dwell 



ROBERT BUCHANAN, 



about this description which are so precisely suited to 
the subject as to raise it to a very lofty rank of poetry. It 
would scarcely be possible to find language and thought 
more happily wedded than they are here. Tlie ' Widow 
Mysie/ in the same volume, betrays qualities of quite 
another stamp, exhibiting principally a strange, quaint 
humour which seems to dimple every page into laughter. 
Another poem, in this same volume as originally 
published, but one since suppressed by Mr. Buchanan on 
artistic grounds, contained imagery of the choicest de- 
scription. It was entitled ' Hugh Sutherland's Pansies,* 
and described the troubled life and pathetic death of the 
youth who gave name to the poem. It is a pity that the 
author could not have preserved by some means the 
final scene, for it exhibited beauty of description of a 
rare order. The following passage combines both a 
tenderness and a truth in the imagery which give finish 
to the poetry, and leave nothing to be desired in the way 
of idyllic excellence : — 

* By slow degrees he grew 
Cheerful and meek as dying man could be. 
And as I spoke there came from far-away 
The faint sweet melody of Sabbath bells. 
And, "Hugh," I said, " if God the Gardener 
Neglected those he rears as you have done 
Your pansies and your Pansy, it were ill 



326 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

For we who blossom in His garden. Night 

And morning He is busy at His work. 

He smiles to give us sunshine, and we live : 

He stoops to pluck us softly, a)id our hearts 

Tremble to see the darkness, knowing 7iot 

It is the shadotu He, in stooping, casts. 

He pluckt your Pansy so, and it was well. 

But, Hugh, though some be beautiful and grand, 

Some sickly, like yourself, and mean, and poor, 

He loves them all, the Gardener loves them all I " 

Then later, when no longer he could sit 

Out on the threshold, and the end was near, 

We set a plate of pansies by his bed 

To cheer him. " He is coming near," I said, 

" Great is the garden, but the Gardener 

Is coming to the corner where you bloom 

So sickly ! " And he smiled and moaned, " I hear ! " 

And sank upon his pillow wearily. 

His hollow eyes no longer bore the light, 

The darkness gather'd round him as I said, 

" The Gardener is standing at your side. 

His shade is on you and you cannot see : 

Lord, that lovest both the strong and weak. 
Pluck him and wear him ! " Even as I prayed, 

1 felt the shadow there and hid my face : 

But when I look'd again the flower was pluck'd, 
The shadow gone : the sunshine thro' the blind 
Gleam'd faintly, and the widow'd woman wept.' 

We are unable to point to a more distinctly poetical idea 
than the one embodied in the three lines maiked in 
italics, and in truth there is a great suffusion of poetry 



ROBERT BUCHANAN, 327 



through the entire passage. The whole volume is not, 
of course, written with this wealth of imagery and power 
of delineation. There are many pages here and there 
which are scarcely, if at all, lifted out of the level of 
commonplace; but enough has been shown to demonstrate 
that those critics were right who thought that a new poet 
had come who had the real ring about him, and whose 
further fortunes were worthy of being watched with consi- 
derable interest. 

Before offering some general remarks on the pecu- 
liarities or characteristics of Mr. Buchanan's genius, we 
will first glance very briefly at the various works which 
he has written. There was a volume entitled * Under- 
tones ' which preceded in publication the one we have 
just dealt with. With the notable exception of the intro- 
ductory poem, it deals almost exclusively with classical 
subjects. While it could not appeal directly to the feel- 
ings of so many people as its predecessor, there is 
stamped upon it the same reaHstic power. There was 
quite enough in the volume to cause the lovers of poetry 
to wonder at the new writer, who lavishly threw about 
undoubted riches in every poem. One of the best fea- 
tures of the book is its workmanship, which is emi- 
nently satisfactory, — in truth, leaving little to be desired. 
For those who wish to see what could be done by one 



328 PORTS AND NOVELISTS. 

who was just entering upon a literary career, let them 
turn to the poem ' Proteus,' and note the description of 
the death of Pan. He dies because of the birth of the 
infant of Bethlehem. The idea is fine, and finely 
worked out. The world was again renewed with the 
presence of Christ, and, as it is well expressed, — 

' Gladden'd by the glory of the child, 
Dawn gleam'd from pole to pole.' 

Then, the lines which follow are exceedingly striking. 
In other poems the old-world subject is again and again 
made to live in modern modes and thought. 'The 
Syren ' is full of music, its rhythm being superior to that 
of any other of its fellows, and the spirit is taken away 
from its enclosure to the scene which the poet is en- 
deavouring to depict. The gifts of the writer are here 
put to excellent uses, and he is as successful, imagina- 
tively, as he is in attaining his leading purpose. Of 
' Pygmalion the Sculptor,' and one or two other etlbrts, 
something might be said, but inasmuch as the volume 
was one of probation chiefly, there is perhaps no neces- 
sity to delay here further. What other references should 
be made to the volume can be made, either directly or 
inferentially, at another juncture. 

The work, however, which left no doubt in the public 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 329 



mind that its author had no ordinary career before him, 
was ' London Poems.' It clearly shows that the poet 
was possessed of this definite idea — viz., to get free from 
the flash and glitter which encrusted the writings of other 
authors, and, in too many cases it is to be feared, blinded 
their readers to the poverty of thought which lay 
beneath. Mr. Buchanan's desire was to understand and 
interpret humanity. That he was singularly successful in 
those views of it which he has given us — restricted though 
they were in scope — there is no possibility of denying. 
Each poem is impregnated with a local truth that is 
truly astonishing, and the setting is the only one adapted 
to the subjects. Had he essayed to tell these stories of 
the poor in the loftiest style, the probability is we should 
have lost the depth of effect in the dazzle of outward 
show. Their strength is proved in the very fact that 
they affect us so deeply when they are cast in the very 
simplest mould. The style is, indeed, sometimes bald to 
simplicity. But altogether it may be conceded that the 
result has justified the author's method. It was made a 
reproach to Mr. Buchanan by one of his own craft that 
he had chosen such humble subjects ; but surely the man 
or the poet who forgets the poor forgets the paths in 
which the Godhead most frequently walks ! Where can 
the divinity of endurance be found so nobly developed 



330 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

as in those very beings whose touch is contamination to 
the curled darlings of society ? Instead of contempt, that 
man is deserving of gratitude who boldly goes into the 
lowest strata of society, and dares to show to the higher 
world the streaks of goodness and nobility of character 
which are to be traced there. Turn to the sister art of 
painting, and note where the finest pathos is to be met 
with. Is it in the great historical pieces to which we are 
sometimes treated, or in the fashionable nonentities 
who, in various guise, cover the walls of the Royal 
Academy in such wondrous profusion — or, lastly, is it 
not rather in such pictures as Faed's 'Mitherless Bairn'? 
Everyone admits at once that what is emotional is 
strongest in its influence. With some such feeling as this, 
coupled with the desire to demonstrate that art was not 
restricted in its treatment, Mr. Buchanan probably 
produced ' London Poems.' One admirable result of his 
artistic skill is this — that in reading the poems the poet 
is absent from our thoughts, and we are able to concen- 
trate our attention upon the objects presented to us. 
The style, as we have before remarked, is such as not to 
destroy, by superior force, the effect of the work. For 
real music and the gift of embodying simple ideas in a 
form which gives pleasure to the soul — the lyric at the 
same time being infused with the true spirit of humour — 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 331 

* The Starling ' deserves high commendation : it is tho- 
roughly novel, clever, and original. 

In the same volume we are discussing there are 
poems which for strength and grasp of passion are most 
graphic and remarkable, in particular ' Liz,' and ^ Edward 
Crowhurst/ In the first, a wretched, unfortunate girl 
tells the story of her life to the parson. She is bad and 
wants to die ; fine ladies are missed from the world when 
they go, but not such beings as she. With terrible truth 
she assures her visitor that men have the best of the 
world in many Avays, whilst women suffer and are beaten 
down. 

' If they grow hard, go wrong, from bad to badder, 
Why, Parson, dear, they're happier being blind : 
They get no thanks for being good and kind — 
The better that they are, they feel the sadder ! ' 

A world of miserable but unimpeachable philosophy lives 
in these lines, which have been always true in the history 
of the race. Woman must bear the degradation, while 
man goes free. A pathetic relation is that where poor 
Liz tells the parson how she once went into the country 
hoping to live there, and earn her bread. The air was 
so clear, ' it seemed a sin to breathe it,' and she was glad 
to leave it and come back to the black streets of London, 
fittest for such as she. 



332 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

• I would not stay out yonder if I could, 
For one feels dead, and all looks pure and good — 

I could not bear a life so bright and still. 

All that I want is sleep, 

Under the flags and stones, so deep, so deep ! 

God won't be hard on one so mean, but He, 
Perhaps, will let a tired girl slumber sound 
There in the deep cold darkness underground ; 

And I shall waken up in time, may be. 

Better and stronger, not afraid to see 
The great, still Light that folds Him round and round.' 

Surely such writing as this is better than the thousand 
meaningless eccentricities and tricks of style which so 
often pass current as poetry. This is substantial ; it has a 
living power about it which satisfies both the brain and 
heart. The same remark would apply to other idylls in 
the volume. ' Edward Crowhurst ' is a poem bearing a 
considerable resemblance to the one on David Gray in 
treatment. It is told in blank verse, and has many 
masterly touches upon it. * Attorney Sneak ' reminds 
one in its rough humour and form of execution of some 
of the poems of Browning; whilst 'Nell' exhibits a terrible 
realism rarely equalled amongst modern lyrics. Of 
polish in the volume there is not enough ; what is done 
is done in a broad, rough manner, as though the artist 
feared he would lose the eftect of his strong manipulation 
if he devoted himself too much to refinement. Doubt- 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 333 

less there is some truth in this. At any rate, for effec- 
tiveness only, this batch of poems stands almost by itself 
amongst Mr. Buchanan's works. 

But the work which showed the deepest insight into 
the human life around him was that entitled ' North 
Coast, and other Poems,' and in this volume there is one 
poem which chiefly challenges attention. By '■ Meg 
Blane,' our author not only sustained his previous claim 
to the attention of the public, but deepened his hold as 
the translator of the tragic elements of modern existence 
into the common language of humanity. There is a 
strange mingling of weirdness and reality about the ballad 
which is both fascinating and appalling. Edgar Allan 
Poe has given us a thrilling picture of despair in the form 
of a monologue, and though we are bound to admit that 
on the score of musical effect the American poet has the 
advantage, yet there are other points in which the verdict 
must be decidedly in favour of the English one. In the 
first place, the elements which compose the poem, while 
of the plainest kind, are also more really tragic in them- 
selves than those of ' The Raven ' ; and in the second 
place, the story is capable of appealing to a far greater 
number of persons. Poe has certainly more elaboration, 
more finish ; in fact, it would be impossible for the most 
fastidious workman to alter his poem with advantage ; 



334 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

but in this later effort the narrative (though not the soli- 
tary idea, it should be borne in mind ) is more realisable. 
Meg Blane, the heroine of the story or ballad, is a fisher- 
woman on the north coast of Scotland. She lives in one 
of the usual huts by the seashore, and has an idiot son 
of some twenty years. Meg is a brave creature, and is 
always ready with the lifeboat on the roughest night to 
weather the storm, and go to the assistance of a crew in 
danger of sinking. And yet this woman, who possessed 
a heroic nobility of spirit, was not what the world vrould 
call pure. She was not a wedded wife, but had left the 
way of the just. However, she had repented sincerely, 
and was no longer afraid of looking into the eyes of those 
whom she met. Delicacy and strength, these were her 
personal characteristics ; the former remained with her, 
because her soul had recovered its uprightness before 
God ; as for her strength and daring, these had been 
abundantly proved by deeds which would have made 
many a man turn pale. Yet when alone in the midnight 
hours the real travail of her soul was manifested. She 
often awoke naming an unknown name, and became 
white as death on missing the object of her quest. One 
of those northern storms, so majestic in their force, is de- 
picted in the first part of the poem, and during its raging, 
Meg had gripped the helm and gone out to sea. As the 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 335 

result of her grand courage she saved a human life ; but 
now mark the terrible pathos of the story. The life she 
saved was the one which had wronged her own in years 
gone by ; the being she had yearned for through days 
and nights of agony was given to her again ; but too late ! 
He was no longer hers ; deeming her dead his life had 
been given to another. The stony despair of the 
shattered woman, her haggard aspect, that feeling of 
sorrow almost too sublime to be realised by the soul of 
any other mortal, are here sought to be rendered, in lines 
instinct with pathos : — 

' With her wild arms around him, he looked stern, 
With an unwelcome burden ill at ease. 
While her full heart flow'd out in words like these — 
" At last ! at last ! O Angus, let me greet ! ^ 
God's good ! I ever hoped that we should meet ! 
Lang, lang hae I been waiting by the sea. 
Waiting and waiting, praying on my knee ; 
And God said I should look again on you, 
And, tho' I scarce believed, God's word comes true, 
And He hath put an end to my distress I " — 
******* 

But he was dumb, and with a pallid frown, 
Twitching his fingers quick, was looking down. 
" What ails thee, Angus ? " cried the woman, reading 
His face with one sharp look of interceding ; 

' To greet ; Aiiglicl\ to weep. 



336 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



Then looking downward too, she paused apart, 

With blood like water slipping through her heart. 

Because she thought, " Alas, if it should be 

That Angus cares no more for mine and me, 

Since I am old and worn with sharp distress. 

And men like pretty looks and daintiness ; 

And since we parted twenty years have past, 

And that is long for a man's love to last ! " 

But, agonised with looking at her woe, 

And bent to end her hope with one sharp blow, 

The troubled man, uplifting hands, spake thus. 

In rapid accents, sharp and tremulous : 

" Too late, Meg Blane ! seven years ago I wed 

Another woman, deeming you were dead, — 

And I have bairns ! " And there he paused for fear. 

As when, with ghostly voices in her ear, 
While in her soul, as in a little well 
The silver moonlight of the Glamour fell. 
She had been wont to hark of nights alone. 
So she stood now, not stirring, still as stone. 
While in her soul, with desolate refrain. 
The words " Too late ! " rang o'er and o'er again ; 
Into his face she gazed with ghastly stare ; 
Then raising her wild arms into the air. 
Pinching her face together in sharp fear. 
She quivered to the ground without a tear. 
And put her face into her hands, and thrust 
Her hair between her teeth, and spat it forth like dust.' 

Twenty years have passed away since her sin, and 
the penalty is re-exacted. If the object of tragic poetry 
be to concentrate the attention of the reader upon its 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 337 

subject, it was never better attained than in the whole 
division of the poem of which this is an extract, and in 
the succeeding passages. The portrait of Angus Blane, 
the fisherwoman's son, is also drawn in vigorous lines, 
and the gradual torpor which overcame Megs spirit is 
followed with truthful delineation till the death. In the 
reaping time she lay a-bed making her own shroud, and 
this is the refrain she murmured night and day : — 

* " O bairn, when I am dead. 

How shall ye keep frae harm ? 
What hand will gie ye bread ? 
What fire will keep ye warm ? 
How shall ye dwell on earth awa' frae me ?" — 
" O Mither, dinna dee ! " 

" O bairn, by night or day, 
I hear nae sounds ava. 
But voices of winds that blaw, 
And the voices of sprites that say, 
' Come awa ! come awa ! ' 
The Lord, that made the Wind and made the Sea, 

Is sore on my son and me. 
And I melt in His breath like snaw." — 
"O Mither, dinna dee!" 

'' O bairn, it is but closing up the een, 
And lying down, ne^■er to rise again. 
Many a strong man's sleeping hae I seen, — 
There is nae pain ! 



338 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

I'm weary, weary, and I scarce ken why ; 

My summer has gone by, 
And sweet were sleep, but for the sake o' thee." — 
"O Mither, dinna dee !"' 

Now the power of this poem, of which we are only 
able to afford the barest idea, consists in its isolation or 
individualisation of character in the first instance, and 
further in the helming into one compact and indivisible 
whole both the individuals and the circumstances. And 
this has been achieved with materials which in themselves 
seemed unpromising. It is for this reason that Mr. 
Buchanan might almost take his stand on this one poem 
alone, and challenge the world upon his general capacity 
as a poet. There breathes through it something of that 
old vital force which has handed down to us the work 
of long-past ages. It is such things as this which are 
able to defy Time in its power to ^vreck mundane 
achievements. We wish to speak with no exaggeration ; 
the best criticism is that which is felt to be the most 
truthful summing-up of the feeling of the greatest number, 
but in this matter in hand we firmly believe that all who, 
calmly and without bias, sit down to consider the poem 
which w'e have been examining, in its high and noble 
aspects towards humanity, will arrive at similar con- 
clusions to those which have been expressed. We talk 
of inspiration in poetry ; to us it seems there are two 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 339 

kinds — the inspiration of intuition, and the inspiration 
of interpretation. A better example of the second form 
could not be found than in ' Meg Blane.' The author 
does not profess therein to have discovered any new 
truths ; his poem may rather be described as a canvas 
on which the inner life of his heroine is depicted, and its 
emotions exposed. The titles of ' The Ballad of Judas 
Iscariot' and 'The Dead Mother' can only be indi- 
cated, but the reader, on turning to the ballads, will 
discover that they are full of singular power and weird- 
ness. 

Of ' The Drama of Kings,' the bulkiest and at the 
same time the most ambitious of Mr. Buchanan's works, 
we cannot, as to construction, speak in terms of such 
high praise, that is, as an entirety ; but there are isolated 
passages which will vie with anything he has written, and 
which ought not to be allowed to die. If we can read the 
genius of its author rightly, it is rather epic than dramatic 
in character, and a careful perusal of his most elaborate 
work only tends further to support this view. The poet 
would be more successful in grasping the import of the 
lives of the individuals of whom he writes than he 
would in grasping the intricacies of the characters them- 
selves. For this reason he would be more successful 
in subduing the individualities to his own grand lead- 



340 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

ing purpose than he would in placing his personages upon 
the stage and allowing them to work out their own 
destinies, as is required in the drama. Then, again, 
whatever may be said to the contrary, in this dramatic 
work the events which form its basis are of too contempo- 
rary a character to be satisfactorily dealt with.^ We do 
not say this for the purpose of following in the wake of 
any criticisms which may already have been passed upon 
it, but it was the honest impression left upon the mind 
after twice carefully reading the whole work. If Mr. 
Buchanan has failed, he has only failed where no other 
living author could have succeeded : even Mr. Browning 
could not have hoped to have achieved a happy result 
in this chosen field. Some events might possibly be 
dealt with by contemporary writers, but the series of 
circumstances chosen in this drama are not of that 
character. And for that reason, probably, a proper meed 
of justice has not been dealt to ' The Drama of Kings.' 
There are parts of it, as already stated, which must not 
be allowed to fall out of existence : the author has had 
prescience to discover this, and in future his readers will 
not be deprived of what is really valuable therein. 
The subject had a great fascination for Mr. Buchanan, 

* Since the above appeared, Mr. Buchanan himself has admitted 
the force of this objection. 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 341 

and gave him an excellent opportunity of exhibiting those 
two qualities which he has always been endeavouring to 
combine in his writings with more or less success — viz., 
earthliness and spirituality — those two qualities which 
find interpretation best perhaps in the formulas — ' I 
live ' and ' I love.' He is perfectly right, too, in his 
opinion that the man who can see no poetry in his own 
time must be very unimaginative. Our difference with 
him would not be on that score. The point is, the form 
of the reproduction of that poetry for the benefit of his 
species. It has been said that Mr. Tennyson, of all the 
poets of his time, is the one who best grapples with the in- 
tellectual doubts of the age. Perfectly agreeing with that 
sentiment, the Poet Laureate is yet by no means uni- 
formly successful in overcoming those doubts. But what 
is his method ? The union of contemporary thought with 
a form of expression and choice of subject not necessarily 
contemporary. His Arthurian poems find half their 
strength in their power to appeal to the intellect and the 
spirit of a century so remote as the nineteenth. ' The 
Drama of Kings ' may be successful in accomplishing its 
author's purpose of making people feel the events it 
describes as he never felt them before, but it does not 
make them feel in precisely the sajtie way as they ought 
to feel. The genius exhibited in the volume is great 



342 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

undoubtedly, but we do not know that if Shakspeare 
himself were alive he could give us portraits of Prince 
Bismarck and Napoleon which would be perfectly satis- 
factory from the inner-life point of view. In our judg- 
ment, the man does not live at the same time with these 
men who would be able to do it. We do not believe 
in the absence of intellectual and spiritual bias to the 
extent necessary for dramatic purposes. So that it 
should be well understood that it is not Mr. Buchanan's 
poetry which is at faults in this volume. It is his subject, 
and his method in the treatment of it. He says that 
the same method is adopted as he used in the characters 
of ' Neir and 'Meg Blane.' Granted: but the result 
is different. Could Mr. Buchanan have as thoroughly 
grasped Napoleon and Bismarck as he has those two 
humble beings just named, he would have possessed 
one element of success. But we deny that that is pos- 
sible. Yet, supposing it had been done, there is then 
the difficulty of his mode of presenting the characters. 
The indirect, instead of the direct, dramatic mode of repre- 
sentation would have best suited the quality of his genius. 
And this remark naturally leads to that volume which 
we regard as not only the most successful, but the most 
valuable of all, and indicating the groove in which he 
ought to work. ' The Book of Orm,' partly for what it 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 343 

yields in itself, and more still for the promise which it 
holds forth, is, in the majority of aspects, the greatest 
piece of work which Mr. Buchanan has accomplished. 
It is, as he himself describes it, the spiritual key to all 
that he has written. When we understand it, we under- 
stand what the poet means — what is the task which he 
has set himself It is a mystical poem, but with a strictly 
modern application. To describe it as a study in the 
Ossianic manner, and to pass it over as a poem with no 
reference to ourselves, but as the diversion of a man who 
loves to play at mysticism, seems to us a foolish and pre- 
posterous method of treating this volume. The fact 
indeed is that it unfolds the ripening of a purpose which 
had been foreshadowed in the very earliest writings of 
the author. The same idea observable here had run 
through his earlier poems, and through ' The Drama of 
Kings,' though the mysticism was not so pronounced in 
those previous svorks. But he evidently wishes to com- 
bine the realism of human life with the insight of the 
mystic. He believes that there is no contradiction and 
no incompatibility between the two. And it is a notice- 
able point, and one which should not be passed over at 
the present moment, that some of the most realistic of 
men — for example, Swedenbcrg — have also been the 
purest mystics. There is no reason whatever why the 



344 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

mystic should be regarded as a being far removed from 
ordinary life, and widi no part nor lot in the strivings and 
throes of humanity. His clear eye has been in times 
past, and may be again to an extent immeasurable, 
serviceable in glancing into the heart of things and 
discovering for us the solution of many problems which 
harass and vex the spirit. It may seem to interfere with 
preconceived notions that this should be the case ; but 
as this is pre-eminently an age for the reversal of here- 
ditary errors, this need not give us any alarm. The race 
of the Celts is one of the most mystical of the species ; 
but the glamour of the spirit does not involve the exclu- 
sion of sympathy with the actual volitions and passions 
of the human unit. 

' The Book of Orm ' takes for its motto a sentence from 
Bacon which well explains the author's intentions in the 
construction of his poem. It is from the prayer of the 
student who begs ' that Human things may not prejudice 
such as are Divine, neither that from the unlocking of 
the Gates of Sense, and the kindling of a greater Natural 
Light, anything of incredulity or intellectual night may 
arise in our minds towards Divine Mysteries.' The book 
is in nine divisions, and the whole scope of the poem 
most daring and stupendous. The author has essayed a 
style of poetry in which previously he had no rival, and 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 345 

notwithstanding small faults of style, he has succeeded. We 
do not know whether we always catch the poet's meaning, 
there is so much of cloud as well as substantiaHty about 
his song, but his speculations are grand in the extreme, 
and the final result is a feeling of awe, the creation of 
which would satisfy the mystic himself. ' The First Song 
of the Veil' treats of the dark film which envelopes 
Nature, and prevents man from seeing God's face behind 
it. The Wise Men are called and asked if they can 
penetrate the darkness, but they can discern no more 
than others. ' 'Twere better not to be,' they reply, for 
' there is no God ! ' Then comes the weird poem intro- 
ducing ' The Man and the Shadow,' the shadow intrud- 
ing itself wherever the wanderer moves, and presaging 
doom. The Rainbow appears in the Heavens, but the 
Vision has no real consolation. He asks — 

' Is it indeed 
A Bridge whereon fair spirits come and go ? 
O Brother, didst thou gUde to peace that way ? 
Silent — all silent — dimmer, dimmer yet, 
Hue by hue dying, creeping back to heaven — 
O let me too pass by it up to God ! 
Too late — it fadeth, faint and far away ! ' 

That hope for solution of the great life-problems is lost. 
The mystery deepens with the * Songs of Corruption.' 
The poet tries to picture the world without death. 



346 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Humanity has cried out against Death for six thousand 
years ; but in a subHme picture it is shown that Earth 
would be worse than the deepest Hell but for the power 
of Death. In the world without death there was no 
happy (if bitter) parting, no farewell in hope of reunion. 

'■ There was no putting tokens under pillows, 
There was no dreadful beauty slowly fading — 
Fading like moonlight softly into darkness. 

There were no churchyard paths to walk on, thinking 

How near the well-beloved ones are lying. 

There were no sweet green graves to sit and muse on, 

Till grief should grow a summer meditation, 

The shadow of the passing of an angel. 

And sleeping should seem easy, and not cruel. 

Nothing but wondrous parting and a blankness.' 

So that the abolition of Death could afford no help to 
the distressed spirit. 'The Soul and the DweUing' is, 
too, a beautifully wrought division, and enlarges still 
further on the awful mystery, and the hardihood of man 
in desiring to see God's face when he has never looked 
on the poorest soul's face in this world full of windows 
with no light. The theology of many will receive a rude 
shock when it is brought face to face with the ' Songs of 
Seeking.' The same amount of boldness of thought was 
never, perhaps, witnessed in a seeker before, and the 
stanzas on Doom give utterance to a thought which is 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 347 



rapidly becoming prevalent, that God is not God if there 
be ultimate condemnation for one soul in this wide uni- 
verse. The dream of the lifting of the Veil is most 
poetically treated ; but of all the divisions in the volume 
that which is loftiest in thought and grandest in expres- 
sion is the one entitled ' Comiskeen Sonnets.' Mr. 
Buchanan, in several of these Coruiskeen poems, has 
reached a great height. What could be finer, for example, 
than the following ? — 

' Come to green under-glooms, — and in your hair 

Weave nightshade, foxglove red, and rank wolfsbane. 

And slumber and forget Him ; if in vain 
Ye try to slumber off your sorrow there. 
Arise once -more and openly repair 

To busy haunts where men and \\'omen sigh, 
And if all things but echo back your care, 

Cry out aloud, " There is no God I " and die. 
But if upon a day when all is dark. 
Thou, stooping in the public ways, shalt mark 

Strange luminous footprints as of feet that shine — 
Follow them ! follow them I O soul bereaven ! 
God had a Son — He pass'd that way to heaven ; 

Follow, and look upon the Face divine I ' 

Wordsworth himself could scarcely have manipulated 
the thought better than it is done there. The following, 
also, is a magnificent sonnet, though there is not the same 
ease of construction about it that we mark in the previous 



348 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

one: observe, however, in the Hnes in question, how they 
touch a large part of the ground occupied by ' In Memo- 
riam' — the same thoughts must have been coursing 
through the two minds : the music of Tennyson is more 
bewitching, but there is a strong under-current of pathos 
in these finely-measured tones : — 

* But He, the only One of mortal birth 

Who raised the Veil and saw the Face behind. 
While yet He wandered footsore on the earth, 

Beheld His Father's eyes, — that they were kind ; 

Here in the dark I grope, confused, purblind, 
I have not seen the glory and the peace, 

But on the darken'd mirror of the mind 
Strange glimmers fall, and shake me till they cease — 
Then, wondering, dazzled, on Thy name I call, 

And, like a child, reach empty hands and moan, 
And broken accents from my wild lips fall, 

And I implore Thee in this human tone ;— 

If such as I can follow Him at all 
Into Thy presence, 'tis by love alone.' 

The capacity for high conception is best illustrated in 
the final division of the volume, ' The Vision of the Man 
Accurst' It is not often that we meet with so much 
clearness and daring combined. Neither the thought nor 
the imagination has been trammelled. Mr. Buchanan 
shows us the worldafter the Great Judgment, when all have 
been redeemed save one man— the man accurst. The 
wretched spirit mocks at the Almighty from the lonely 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 349 

deep. His shrieks, his revilings, his laughter, disturb the 

harmony of the universe. The Lord asks if there is 

anyone who will share the exile of this loathsome being, 

and two respond affirmatively : — 

' The woman who bore him and the wife he wed — 
The one he slew in anger, the other he stript, 
With ravenous claws, of raiment and of food.' 

They went forth and conquered ; they kissed the fearful 
thing's bloody hands, and the man wept. The Lord said, 
* The man is saved ; let the man enter in.' Such is the 
end of what is indubitably a lofty effort of the imagina- 
tion. Mr. Buchanan says this poem is but the prelude 
to an epic. If the epic be at all of the same character, 
there is no difficulty in deciding that it w411 assume one 
of the highest positions in contemporary poetry. All the 
qualities which are admirable in poetic art find a lodg- 
ment to a greater or less degree in ' The Book of Orm.' 
It has simplicity, grandeur; beauty, sublimity; sweet- 
ness, pathos. The word-painting — to adopt a phrase for 
which we have no special liking, but which is very ex- 
pressive — is wonderful ; whilst we witness also a felicitous 
handling of all kinds of rhythm and rhyme. A surface 
reading of such a volume as this is a great injustice ; it 
is to be read many times, and never without a new and 
singular light being thrown upon passages which seemed 



350 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



hazy and meaningless before. There is also to be dis- 
cerned, beneath much that is tempestuous, and apparently 
the tossings of a wild and rebellious spirit, the firm pur- 
pose of a soul which has not slipped its anchor. 

A year or two ago a remarkable poem, entitled ' St. 
Abe and his Seven Wives,' was published anonymously. 
Although first issued in this country, the reviewers were 
unanimous in ascribing it to an American poet, part 
assigning the authorship to Lowell and part to Bret 
Harte. It was a picture of Salt Lake life, as its title im- 
plied, and the local colouring was so strong that any 
suspicions one might cherish that the author was an 
Englishman were almost imperatively laid to sleep. Yet 
portions of the poem were cast in a form which led the 
reader to associate with it the name of Robert Browning, 
of whose hand much that had place in it was not un- 
worthy. The humour was of excellent quality, and the 
sense of delicacy, even with so dangerous a subject, 
rarely, or indeed never outraged. It is not our intention 
to go over this poem now, which will be more operative 
as an exposure of the evils of Mormondom than any 
more serious or pretentious book ; but we refer to it 
because it has been succeeded by a work from the same 
hand which betrays, we think, the author beyond the 
power of contradiction. We refer to ' White Rose and 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 351 

Red,' one of the most remarkable poems issued for a 
considerable period. It has all the gorgeous colour of 
Titian, with the breadth of Rembrandt. Anonymous 
though it be, its author might stake his fame upon that 
poem as lifting him to a very high place amongst his 
brethren. Though an American story — and all the sin- 
gular local truthfulness has been attained which distin- 
guished the previous poem — there are signs about the 
later work which, as already observed, unmistakably fix 
the authorship. It is a work which would command 
attention from its total dissimilarity in style to all the 
poetry of the time. With a development of powers of 
satire and feeling of no mean order, there is the seizure 
and portrayal of nineteenth-century life in the most 
realistic manner. The various metres in which the divi- 
sions of the poem are composed add to the general effect 
and value of the work, whilst art of a high order is ex- 
hibited in the construction. The story follows the 
adventures of two heroines who furnish the title for the 
book — one belonging to the dusky Indian race, and the 
other to the New England whites. Red Rose is the type 
of all that is luxuriantly beautiful and graceful, with a 
semi-wildness of nature. This is a portrait of her as she 
rests coiled on her warm forest couch, — 
' Around her brow a circlet of pure gold, 
With antique letters scrolled. 



352 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Burns in the sun-ray, and with gold also 

Her wrists and ankles glow ; 
Around her neck the threaded wild cat's teeth 

Hang white as pearl, beneath 
Her bosoms heave, and in the space between, 

Duskly tattooed, is seen 
A figure small as of a pine-bark brand 

Held blazing in a hand. 
Her skirt of azure, wrought with braid and thread 

In quaint signs yellow and red. 
Scarce reaches to her dark and dimpled knee, 

Leaving it bare and free. 
Below, moccasins red as blood are wound, 

With gold and purple bound ; — 
So that red-footed like the stork she lies. 

With softly shrouded eyes. 
Whose brightness seems with heavy lustrous dew 

To pierce the dark lids through. 
Her eyelids closed, her poppied lips apart, 

And her quick eager heart 
Stirring her warm frame, as a bird unseen 

Stirs the warm lilac-sheen, 
She slumbers, — and of all beneath the skies 

Seemeth the last to rise.' 

Is not this a finer description than any pencil could 
accomplish, touching, as it does, character as well as 
bodily outlines ? Another portrait, equally well drawn, 
is presented to us in Eureka Hart, the gigantic white man 
of the State of Maine. Red Rose comes upon him in 
the woods, falls in love with him on the spot, thinking 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 353 

she never beheld anything more beauteous, and he is 
taken captive by a number of her tribe. The captivity, 
however, which binds him stronger than the hold of the 
tribe is the captivity of love. He is just an easy-going, 
handsome animal, and becomes hopelessly enchained by 
the beauty of Red Rose. The nuptial rites are such, we 
regret to state, as would not make the marriage legitimate 
in any well-regulated, civilised country, but the two 
seem none the less happy in spite thereof. The passages 
which immediately follow this incident betray so much of 
Mr. Buchanan's spirit and manner that we wonder his 
name never suggested itself as the author, to any of the 
numerous critics of the poem. Eureka Hart at length 
grew weary of his lot, and in proportion to the evapo- 
ration of his passion grew vividly the remembrance of his 
relatives far away. He persuaded Red Rose ultimately 
to consent to a brief visit to his native place, just to bid 
a final farewell to those he loved. He departed, leaving 
behind him a paper with the writing (in his blood) 
* Eureka Hart, Drowsietown, State of Maine.' The 
little paper lies for ever on the woman's heart to soothe the 
sad pain of parting. The Sixth Canto of the Second Part 
bears, we think, almost irresistible evidence of having 
been written by the author of ' London Poems,' allowing 
that the style has ripened in the interim. Did not space 

A A 



354 



POETS AND NOVELISTS, 



fail we should desire to reproduce some of the charming 
passages which so truthfully depict Drowsietown, the 
abode of the Harts. When Eureka arrives and settles 
down there, it is not without some twinge of conscience 
with regard to the splendid, impulsive creature he has 
left behind. But these thoughts become fainter and 
fainter as he is bewitched by Phoebe, the White Rose, 
who presents a marked contrast in every particular to his 
former love. Dainty, mild, and prudish, she is meant to 
be a happy mother, very sober-mooded and very faithful. 
The upshot is that Eureka finds himself shortly at the 
altar with Phoebe, who is united to him in holy matri- 
mony by Parson Pendon. And now begins the really 
grand and tragical part of the story. We have had 
spring, summer, and autumn painted by the poets again 
and again, but winter very seldom. Let anyone who 
wishes for a perfect description of the season turn to the 
book devoted to the Great Snow. Never was anything 
more beautifully and accurately realised, and as we read 
we are sensible of the fact that there is more after all in 
the coKl, calm, white season than we have hitherto 
imagined. During the great snowstorm Phoebe is at 
home wondering what keeps Eureka in the town. Mean- 
while, there is a foot on the snow, drawing nearer and 
nearer. A low murmur is at last heard, and something 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 



355 



taps at the window. The door is opened, and in 
staggers a woman — the Red Rose — with an infant at her 
breast. She has been wearied with the absence of her 
lover, and affection has guided her steps right away from 
the haunts of her tribe to Drowsietown. Phoebe finds the 
paper bearing her husband's name upon the wanderer, 
but in the midst of her conflicting emotions the door 
opens, and Eureka Hart walks in. The poem from this 
point is full of force and pathos. The loving heart of 
Phcebe conquers her anger when she beholds the death- 
touch upon Red Rose, and in pitying she forgives. Her 
rival dies in the arms of the conscience-stricken Eureka, 
still regarding him as her godlike chief This is the 
final glimpse of her : — 

' See ! her hand points upward slowly, 
With an awful grace and holy. 
And her eyes are saying clearly, 
" Master, lord, beloved so dearly, 
We shall meet, with souls grown fonder, 
In God's happy prairies yonder ; 
Where no snow falls ; \vhere, for ever, 
Flows the shining Milky River, 
On whose banks, divinely glowing, 
Shapes like ours are coming, going. 
In the happy star-dew moving, 
Silent, smiling, loved, and loving ! 
Fare thee well, till then, my Master ! " 
Hark, her breath comes fainter, faster, 

A A 2 



356 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

While, in love man cannot measure, 

Kissing her white warrior's hand. 
She sinks, with one great smile of pleasure — 

Last flash upon the blackening brand ! ' 

Now, although in an artistic sense some would consider 
this poem to fail because of its ending, we cannot so 
regard it. The author has obviously meant to exhibit to 
us the fragmentary character, and utterly disappointing 
nature, of human life. To say that he does not manifest 
art because his work closes with a feeling of melancholy, 
seems to us most inefficient criticism. The work ends 
tragically, exactly as the author had intended it should 
end from the first inception of the story ; though of 
course the most prominent impression left on the mind is 
that the poem ^vas conceived mostly for the purpose of 
developing the passion of the Red Rose. The very 
realism to which the poet is devoted would be defeated 
had he attempted to reconcile ideas and facts which are 
seen to be in positive discord. If the poem be inartistic, 
certainly one half of our pathetic literature — both in 
prose and verse — must bear it company. But its genius 
is too true to permit of such a false conclusion. The 
poem is great — great in truthfulness, in conception, and 
in elaboration. The matter, however, in which we are 
most concerned is, that though its authorship has not 



ROBERT BUCHANAN, 



357 



been acknowledged, there are traces of workmanship 
about it which point to Mr. Buchanan as its author. It 
exhibits, in the first place, an amplification of one of his 
strongest personal canons in poetry — that the writer 
should be perfectly disinterested, and free himself com- 
pletely from faulty systems of ethics which are too often 
accepted without due consideration. Then, again, 
several of the situations in the poem, which would have 
been rejected by other living poets, of sufficient standing 
capable of writing it, as vulgar, have been deliberately 
chosen, and successfully handled. In short, as Mr. 
Buchanan desired it to be distinctly understood by his 
' London Poems ' and ' Meg Blane,' we have conventiona- 
lities set aside, and the human heart inverted, with all 
its passions, so that the remainder of the world, as well 
as the poet, might be able to wtness its subtle workings. 
Between Nell and Red Rose we perceive a great amount 
of approximation. In both we have an out-of-the-way 
creation, but from him who gave us the first it would not 
be difficult to predicate the gift of the latter. Character 
has been preserved in both cases, and the truth spiri- 
tualised in precisely the same mode. There is no more 
vulgarity in one portrait than in the other. Neither does 
the poet profess to explain everything : enough for him 
to dare to be true. The personal chord running through 



358 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

this poem, ' White Rose and Red,' we should have 
considered sufficient to identify it. Besides Tennyson 
and Browning, there is no other person except Mr. 
Buchanan Avhose work we could consider it to be, and 
there are insuperable aspects which would immediately 
forbid us associating the authorship with the Poet 
Laureate, or the writer of ' Pippa Passes.' We shall at 
some future day probably receive confirmation of the 
views just expressed from the (at present) unknown 
author of the work.^ 

Upon the prose works of Mr. Buchanan there is no 
room left to enlarge, nor perhaps is there any great neces- 
sity for doing so. They exhibit to a large extent the 
same qualities as his labours in verse. There is the same 
absolute truthfulness to the scenes he professes to de- 
scribe, with a strong power of words. In the 'Land of 
Lome ' we have more than one passage which for elo- 
quence can vie with anything accomplished in ihe 
measures of song. The author has found himself amongst 
the beauties and the wonders of Nature in Avhich his soul 
delights, and his fancy has been allowed to wander free 
and unrestrained. The crudity which distinguished his 
essays has completely disappeared, and he writes almost 

* The authorship of the poem in question has now been admitted 
by Mr. Buchanan. 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 359 

as freely as in his more natural element. The attractive- 
ness and grandeur of Scotch scenery were but a shadow 
and a name to us till we read his glowing descriptions, 
but now we feel as though we also had been subject to 
the terrors of the Gulf of Corryvrechan, and had beheld 
the gloom and the mystery brooding over Loch Corruisk. 
In making some final observations upon Mr. Bu- 
chanan as one of the prominent poets of the time, there is 
an excellent sign visible in his works which is most hope- 
ful for the future. He is not an echo of any other poet. 
Whatever may be thought of his song, or whatever posi- 
tion may be assigned to it, it is perfectly original and 
spontaneous. He has not sung because he has been 
moved to imitation by the graces of other poets, nor for 
any other reason, except the one which should always 
determine the poet — viz., because song was in his heart. 
That is an election whose end is always inevitable — more 
commanding and imperious than Fate. As well Xxj to 
eliminate music from the bird as suppress the volitions 
and the manifestations of the poet. It is his life to sing. 
There may be false singers who for the moment contrive 
to attract the public ear, but their influence is fleeting. 
They can no more satisfy the world than could the sounds 
which would proceed from an automaton being. The 
moment it is discovered that a singer is unnatural and 



36o POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

that his music is a forced growth, that moment will his 
power begin to decline. It is something, then, that our 
author is of sufficient calibre to be able to be perfectly 
independent of any of his species. He has studied 
deeply at many imaginative springs, but his own well of 
song is unmixed with their waters. His utterance is 
growing clearer and more distinct every year. But in 
addition to this originality, there is the merit of endeavour- 
ing to assist in the formation of a superior school of 
poetry to that which generally attracts singers of a lower 
order. So far from regarding the subjects which he has 
chosen as unworthy of the poet's pen, we think it re- 
dounds to his credit that he has thus probed the depths 
of society. All his graphic, dramatic force would have 
been a mere shadow, nay lost altogether, if he had missed 
the realism which is impressed on everything he has 
written. The art which delineates the career of a poor 
coster-girl may be as fine and correct as that which 
conceives a Hamlet : false art Hes not in the subject, but 
in the manner of treatment. Essential service is ren- 
dered to humanity when any life is so presented to it as 
to beget sympathy for the object, whilst Vice is left un- 
toyed with, and appears in all its naked hideousness. In 
such a way as was never before accomplished, we believe, 
Mr. Buchanan has, in his London lyrics, come between 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 361' 

society and the degraded beings who have been the 
objects of its contempt and disgust, and has acted as an 
interpreter. It is poetry of this description which will 
succeed in retaining its hold upon humanity. Whatever 
else may die, song which is impressed with a true and 
profound human interest is imperishable.^ 

Again, his genius and pathos are not local. Man the 
unit being mortal, but man the species being immortal, 

' Many of the observations in this paragraph would apply to 
two other poets of the day, who seem scarcely to have received 
sufficient credit for the Avork which they have achieved. I refer to 
the Hon. Roden Noel and the Hon. Leicester Warren. With 
regard to the former, his 'Red Flag, and other Poems,' and more 
recently ' Livingstone,' would bear out my assertions. Li the volume 
of the 'Red Flag' we find the poet take up topics which have 
intense interest to men around us, and they are dealt with in a 
vigorous and poetical manner. I was struck greatly by the strength 
and originality of many of the poems in this volume. Occasionally 
the metre is rough, but the work is infiised with a fine spirit, and 
Mr. Noel, like Mr. Buchanan, is no imitator. Again, his ' Living- 
stone ' is an admirable attempt at dealing with a contemporary sub- 
ject, and the natural scenery of Africa is glowingly depicted. Mr. 
W^arren has, perhaps, caught more of the true classical spirit than 
any other of our poets, though not to the exclusion of that of the 
age in which he lives. His ' Searching the Net, and other Verses ' 
exhibits a keen sympathy between the writer and the subject and cir- 
cumstances which he endeavours to depict. I think that in the case 
of both these writers, their poetry appeals to what is best and purest, 
both as regards the intellect and the spirit. We have not so many 
genuine poets that we can afford to pass by, with the barest recog- 
nition merely, those whom we do possess. 



362 POETS AXD XOVELISTS. 

that which has its foundation in the essential lot of hu- 
manit}^ — ^joy and suffering — must also pass on from age 
to age, gathering strength and vitality. But how is the 
pathos of a life to be seized? It cannot be done in the 
attempted revivification of beings long dead, Anthout the 
aid of the finest qualities of the great poet— insight, 
emotion, sincerity. Given these qualities, and witness 
their exercise upon contemporary subjects, and we have 
at once poetry which is not only true to-day, but must 
be immortally so. When we read Mr. Buchanan's 
' London Poems ' we felt that they were great, if 
even from their courage alone. Nothing was wanting 
save those finishing touches to the marble which are no 
essential part of the portrait, but which leave unoftended 
the eye of the mind. The spiritualisation was complete. 
His ethology, too, was accurate; there was no contra- 
diction between persons individualised and their actions 
— owing to the perfect disinterestedness of the poet we 
had the beings themselves, and not beings partially 
deprived of their identity by the plastic influence of the 
artist. What our author lacked in his earlier work he has 
been gradually assimilating since, and has now succeeded 
in getting his language and his art under the fullest 
control. 

In the great power, then, of appealing to universal 



ROBERT BUCHANAN. 363 



humanity lies Mr. Buchanan's security. ' The Book of 
Orm ' is an assurance that we shall yet receive from him 
a loftier poem. The full richness of his genius only began 
to unfold itself clearly in his latest work. A \\-ide field in 
which laurels are to be won lies before him; and his future 
is w'thin his own making. Competent critics have assured 
him that he has already added to English literature 
much which ought not to perish ; and in this verdict we 
unhesitatingly agree. The light of Nature has been his 
guide, and the human heart his study. With these still 
as his greatest incentives he must unquestionably attain 
an exalted position amongst the poets of the nineteenth 
century. His doubts, his interrogatories, do not alarm 
us. In a poet they are healthy signs, and prevent stag- 
nation or deterioration. They beget hope that Light 
will be seen at last. To the Seer belongs the power of 
elevating the human soul, of unravelling life's mysteries, 
and of piercing through many of those folds which pre- 
vent man from apprehending God. This power, or this 
glamour, or whatever it be, is indubitably upon Mr. 
Buchanan. Let him be faithful to himself and to his 
gifts, and in an age which does not promise to be rich in 
lofty poetr\', he \\'ill produce works which cannot fail to 
be accepted as incontestably great, and worthy of the 
world's preservation. 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS 



[EDINBURGH REVIEW] 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 

Ix poetry and creative art the ancient world left little or 
no room in which the modern could demonstrate its 
superiority. Science has multiplied the appliances for the 
diffusion of knowledge, and invention has achieved many 
and extraordinary triumphs, but the individual mind has 
not shown itself capable of higher flights of imagination 
than those of the old bards. In these later centuries we 
have seen but one poet capable of sustaining the mantle 
of Homer. And the superiority of the ancients is equally 
undoubted when we consider those slighter efforts in 
verse which are confessedly of a somewhat ephemeral 
character, and meant principally to embody only the 
feelings of the age in which they are written. Horace 
was the best writer of light lyrical verse the world 
has seen, while, at the same time, he was something 
much greater and higher. But regarding him in this 
passing reference mainly as a poet of society, what 
higher compliment can we pay to a poet of our own 
time than to say that he is truly Horatian in spirit, or 



368 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

writes with the Horatian pen ? But Horace himself was 
not the father of this fugitive poetry. The Roman poet 
acknowledges that Anacreon was its originator ; but 
whether that be so or no, the Anthology is full of ex- 
cellent examples of it, and the earliest known specimens 
now in existence were left by the Greeks. 

^ Nee, si quid olim lusit Anacreon, 

Delevit aetas ; spiral adhuc amor, 

Vivuntque commissi calores 

Police lidibus puellse.' 

Great proficiency was attained in all forms of song, the 
amatory, the didactic, the literary and artistic, the witty 
and satirical, and others. The poems themselves have 
occupied the leisure of men of eminence in the modern 
world, and were 'favourite objects of study with Eras- 
mus and his friend Sir Thomas More.' Chesterfield, it 
is true, denounced the Greek epigrams in his Letters to 
his son, but against his solitary testimony — which in 
this matter is of no particular weight — is to be set that of 
Cowper, Johnson, and many other men of equally op- 
posite temperaments, to whom they were a solace and 
a delight. Lord Neaves (himself no mean proficient in 
the art of gay and gaillard rhymes) observes, in his 
very graceful little volume, that ' from the time of Martial 
the epigram came to be characterised generally by that 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 369 



peculiar point or sting, which we now look for in a 
French or English epigram, and the want of this in the 
old Greek compositions doubtless led some minds to 
think them tame and tasteless. The true or the best 
form of the early Greek epigram does not aim at wit or 
seek to produce surprise. Its purpose is to set forth 
in the shortest, simplest, and plainest language, but yet 
with perfect purity and even elegance of diction, some 
fact or feeling of such interest as would prompt the real 
or supposed speaker to record it in the form of an 
epigram ; though it is true that, particularly in the later 
period of epigrammatic writing, these compositions, even 
among the Greeks, assumed a greater variety of aspect, 
and were employed as the vehicle of satire or ridicule, 
as a means of producing hilarity and mirth.' It would 
be tedious to trace the gradual developments and 
changes in this kind of verse from the days of the first 
Greek writers to the time of Horace. The latter, how- 
ever, seems to have conserved many of its best elements, 
and to have added others which gave him so distinctive 
a place that, even more than his predecessors in the art, 
he has become a type for modern poets. His imitators 
for the most part serve but to denote the painful dif- 
ference there is between the founder of a style and he 
v.-ho attempts to copy it. Our purpose is not to institute 

B 1] 



370 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

a comparison between the Roman poet's work and that 
of his successors, but to glance at the songs of those 
English writers who, taking him to a great extent as their 
model, have written the verse of passing moods and 
emotions, and have not attempted that higher branch 
of poetry which secures the loftiest renown from pos- 
terity. 

What do we mean by vers de societe if, with Mr. 
Locker, we must use a French phrase to denote a thing 
as old as the English language ? They are the expres- 
sion of common sentiment and common feeling 
in graceful but familiar rhyme. Poetry of this kind 
excites in us no wonder, no unwonted excitement ; but 
it pleases us because, apparently without effort, it has 
translated into verse the ordinary sensations of humanity, 
those which change with the hour, which are again 
and again renewed, and which are the property of almost 
every nature. For instance, when a Avriter of vers de 
societe gives us his impressions of female beauty, they are 
usually drawn from those points of view which belong to 
common aesthetics, and not from that hidden deeper 
spring of beauty which has in it something of the spiritual, 
and which requires the soul of the true poet rightly to 
apprehend. The arch smile, the dress, the peach-like 
bloom of the cheek — these are the things which arrest the 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 



3/1 



eye of the poet of society just as they are the things 
which strike the vast majority of men. 

He who writes of the world must mingle with the 
world. The most successful and the most brilliant of the 
school of authors to which we are referring have been 
those who have lived largely in society ; who have 
studied its movements, its caprices, and its spirit. They 
have generally been men of ease and observation, and 
yet men of no settled purpose as regards the expression 
of their thoughts. They have not so much sought the 
muse as left the muse to come to them ; when she has 
given them an apropos inspiration they have -written. 
The pen has served as a medium to turn a compliment, 
to secure a fleeting idea, or to enshrine a random reflec- 
tion. Such an end may seem trivial, but the result in the 
bulk of these verses has been most valuable. What a 
glance at contemporary history we obtain from the time of 
Raleigh down to our own day through the aid of our minor 
English poetry ! It is as trustworthy as a book of cos- 
tume, with the addition of a living human interest. 

Writers of fugitive verses hang, as it were, upon the 
skirts of the greater poets of their own time, and all that 
they do takes a tinge from them. Accordingly, we find 
that the minor verse of the Elizabethan period possesses 
a nobler expression and a greater sweetness than that of 



372 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

the nineteenth century, from the fact that it was an echo 
of that subhme period in EngHsh Hterature. The satel- 
lites of Shakspeare, Spenser, and Jonson were likely to 
emit a stronger radiance than those of Wordsworth, 
Byron, or Tennyson. The grace of the first writers of 
this humbler poesy has never been surpassed. With 
every century there has been a corresponding change 
between the two kinds of verse, though the age must also 
be counted as a factor in the production of such general 
result. 

The writing of this poetry, simple as it appears, re- 
quires special gifts. In the first place, terseness is an 
especial requisite. To be verbose in verse which, as it 
were, flies with the wind, is to fail in the first principle of 
the art. The best writer of society verse is always 
happiest when he is concentrated. Light verse written 
in cantos — unless it took the form of a humourous or 
satirical narrative like ' Don Juan ' — would fatigue the 
reader. It is not the highest kind of genius which de- 
votes itself to this work, and the verbosity which we 
could tolerate, if we could not always enjoy, in the 
greater Avriter becomes insufferable in the lesser. The 
man who writes vers de societe must have as decided a gift 
in his own form of expression and conception as the 
artist who takes a higher rank. To quote the words of 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 373 

Isaac D'lsraeli : — ' It must not be supposed that because 
these productions are concise they have, therefore, the 
more faciHty ; we must not consider the genius of a 
poet diminutive because his pieces are so, nor must we call 
them, as a sonnet has been called, a difficult trifle. A 
circle may be very small, yet it may be as mathematically 
beautiful and perfect as a larger one. To such compo- 
sitions we may apply the observation of an ancient critic, 
that though a Httle thing gives perfection, yet perfection 
is not a little thing. The poet to succeed in these 
hazardous pieces must be alike polished by an inter- 
course with the world as with the studies of taste, to 
whom labour is negligence, refinement a science, and art 
a nature. Genius will not always be sufficient to impart 
that grace of amenity which seems peculiar to those who 
are accustomed to elegant society. . . . These produc- 
tions are more the effusions of taste than genius, and it is 
not sufficient that the poet is inspired by the Muse, he 
must also suffer his concise pages to be polished by the 
hand of the Graces.' 

Steele, who himself regarded Sappho, Anacreon, and 
Horace as the completest models in this range of verse, 
was the author of a charming paper in his '■ Guardian,' 
which really exhausts the subject. ' These little things,' 
he says, ' do not require an elevation of thought, nor any 



374 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

extraordinary capacity, nor an extensive knowledge ; but 
then they demand great regularity and the utmost nicety ; 
an exact purity of style, with the most easy and flowing 
numbers ; an elegant and unaffected turn of wit, with one 
uniform and simple design. Greater works cannot well 
be without some inequalities and oversights, and they 
are in them pardonable ; but a song loses all its lustre 
if it be not polished with the greatest accuracy. The 
smallest blemish in it, like a flaw in a jewel, takes off the 
whole value of it. A song is, as it were, a little image in 
enamel, that requires all the nice touches of the pencil, a 
gloss, and a smoothness, with those delicate finishing 
strokes which would be superfluous and thrown away upon 
larger figures, where the strength and boldness of a 
masterly hand give all the grace.' This description of 
what a song should be is extremely felicitous, and covers 
the ground which we are desirous to include within the 
scope of our observations. Steele considers the ancient 
writers whom he names great in the art because they 
pursue a single thought, whereas the moderns cram too 
much into one song. Waller occasionally commits this 
error, while Cowley is defective through a redundancy of 
wit. The reader is dazzled by the starting of so many 
trains of thought, whereas a song should be constructed 
as we would construct an epigram. 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 375 

The limitation to which we have committed ourselves 
will forbid an examination of the claims of those who on 
the Continent first cultivated the art of light versification. 
But even were the scope widened it would be practically 
impossible to touch upon the French and Italian writers 
from the time of the Troubadours and of Ronsard down- 
wards who have attained great proficiency in spontaneous 
and courtly verse. The two countries named were more 
prolific in a single age, perhaps, than England has been 
in the course of three centuries in the production of these 
writers. But besides their excellency in the construction 
of songs and lyrics, the Italians perfected another style 
which finds an admirable exponent in Boiardo, the author 
of the ' Orlando Innamorato,' and in Berni, who is re- 
membered principally for his Rifacimento of that cele- 
brated work. This style is full of episode and descrip- 
tion, and although the element of lightness may be often 
discovered in it, it is scarcely germane to our subject 
Boiardo's style was first imitated in this country within 
the present century by Hookham Frere in ' Whistlecraft,' 
and afterwards by Byron in 'Beppo' and 'Don Juan.' 
But comic epic, or mock heroic poetry, notwithstanding 
that it possesses the one feature of familiarity common 
also to lighter verse, is removed from the true subject of 
this enquiry. In the one we have many trains of ideas 



376 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



started ; in the other we have the bending of the energies 
to the complete grasping and setting forth of one leading 
thought. So in familiar poetry : '■ Don Juan ' presents us 
with a series of pictures, but real fugitive verse expends 
itself in the perfection of one. The power of improvisa- 
tion, which was so remarkable a feature of the Italian 
poetic genius generally, and of the French at certain 
spasmodic periods, has been almost wholly absent in 
England. We have no parallel to the court of King 
Rene, which swarmed with singers of no mean order, and 
musicians of a sweet and delicate if not powerful melody. 
We are a heavy and practical, in distinction from a light 
and sunny race \ and our accomplishments in fugitive 
verse cannot for grace and elegance be ranged in com- 
parison with those of France and Italy. Such as we are, 
we are, however ; and we shall doubtless discover that in 
other important respects our writers have the superiority 
over Continental poets. 

Arriving now at a consideration of some of the riches 
of English literature as regards this attractive class of 
poetry, let us first devote a brief space to those writers 
who flourished before the time of Waller. Much of the 
best verse issued from the versifiers of the sixteenth cen- 
tury and the earlier portion of the seventeenth. In the 
lyrics of that period we are struck with the especial beauty 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 2>77 



and sweetness of many whose authorship is unknown. 
It speaks well for the popular taste, notwithstanding, that 
though the authors have long since crumbled into dust, 
their work has been preserved and handed down from 
generation to generation. What could be more exquisite, 
for instance, than the following verses, which seem to 
combine all the requisites for ve7's de societc, and the 
writer of which is still and must always remain un- 
known ? — 

' Since first I saw your face I resolved 

To honour and renown you ; 
If now I be disdained, I wish 

My heart had ne'er known you. 
What 1 I that loved, and you that liked — 

Shall we begin to wrangle ? 
No, no, no, my heart is fast, 

And cannot disentangle ! 

If I admire or praise too much, 

That fault you may forgive me ; 
Or if my hands had strayed to touch, 

Then justly might you leave me. 
I asked you leave, you bade me love, 

Is't now a time to chide me ? 
No, no, no, I'll love you still. 

What future e'er betide me. 

The sun, whose beams most glorious are, 

Rejecteth no beholder ; 
And thy sweet beauty, past compare. 

Made my poor eyes the bolder. 



378 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



Where beauty moves, and wit delights, 

And signs of kindness bind me, 
There, oh ! there, where'er I go, 

I leave my heart behind me.' 

Most of these old poems touch upon the passion of 
love, and in none has the thought been better conveyed 
than in Ben Jonson's address to Celia, which, familiar 
as it is, can never be read without delight : — 

' Drink to me only with thine eyes. 
And I will pledge with mine ; 
Or leave a kiss but in the cup 
And I'll not look for wine. 

The thirst that from the soul doth rise 

Doth ask a drink divine ; 
But might I of Jove's nectar sup, 

I would not change for thine/ 

A lightness and an intensity are combined here so per- 
fectly as to make the gem complete. The language is 
of the simplest, is free and unrestrained, and the idea 
exceedingly pretty. Now and then in these earlier days 
we light upon verses in which the feeling of melancholy 
predominates, as in those soft and someAvhat sad lines 
by Carevv, which would seem to have been penned 
after a rebuff sustained at the hands of the cruel fair 
one : — 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 379 

' He that loves a rosy cheek 

Or a coral lip admires, 
Or from star-like eyes doth seek 

Fuel to maintain his fires ; 
As old Time makes these decay, 
So his flames must waste away. 

But a smooth and steadfast mind. 
Gentle thoughts, and calm desires, — 

Hearts with equal love combined, 
Kindle never-dying fires ; 

Where these are not, I despise 

Lovely cheeks, or lips, or eyes.' 

It would be a task to scrutinise at length the varied 
lyrical treasures of the Elizabethan era, as we have 
received them from the pens of Wither, Sir Henry 
Wotton, Donne, Cowley, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Robert 
Ayton, Sir Walter Raleigh, and others. Raleigh was 
a master in the art of verse, though his superiority in 
other respects has somewhat detracted from his fame in 
this. Everybody, however, remembers his reply to 
Marlowe's song of the ' Passionate Shepherd to his Love,' 
beginning — 

' If all the world and love were young 
And truth in every shepherd's tongue. 
These pretty pleasures might me move 
To live with thee and be thy love.' 

Raleigh's poetical pieces are especially marked by con- 



38o POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



ceits— often rivalling Donne in that respect. Neither 
were they without strength, as indeed might well be 
predicated when we consider the man. It is a question, 
however, whether they have as yet been rated at their 
full value. Stately and vigorous is his language, bearing 
the impress of an unbending will, a will that did not 
quail when the block even was in view. Many poems 
which were once associated with his name have been 
discovered not to be his workmanship, but those which 
remain, and which have been unquestionably authenti- 
cated, bear witness to the variety of his gifts. He was 
certainly a writer of vers de socicte, but being naturally a 
man of a grave and strong spirit, rather than a laughing 
and volatile one, his verse is now and again heavy and 
sententious. 

In the course of reading through the earlier English 
poems it is interesting to note how the ideas of a later 
day are but simply the refurbishing of those of the older 
men. In a set of verses supposed to be by the drama- 
tist John Heywood, entitled ' A Description of a most 
Noble Lady,' and written before 1557, w'e discover the 
thought which Byron gave utterance to in his monody 
on Sheridan. The passage will be remembered when we 
quote Heywood's lines : — 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 381 



' I think Nature hath lost the mould 
Where she her shape did take ; 
Or else I doubt if Nature could 
So fair a creature make.' 

Beyond all dispute, the best of the early lyric poets 
is Robert Herri ck, whose verses are flushed with a joyous 
and tender spirit. He may be styled the Burns of his 
time, and was imbued with something of the reckless soul 
of the great north-countryman. Herrick was born in 
Cheapside in the year 1591, and educated at Cambridge. 
In 1629 he became vicar of Dean Prior, in Devonshire. 
The time of the Civil War, however, found him living at 
Westminster, w^here he resided also during the Common- 
wealth. After the Restoration he came into his vicarage 
again, but by this time he was an old man, and none the 
better for his devotion to the convivial company to be 
found in the London taverns, where he was ever one of 
the gayest of the gay. He died in 1674, having left 
behind him some of the sweetest word-music that we 
possess. Nothing could be more delightful than these 
verses on the Daffodils : — 

' Fair Daffodils, we weep to see 

You haste away so soon : 
As yet the early rising sun 
Has not attained his noon. 



382 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



Stay, stay, 
Until the hasting day 

Has run 
But to the even-song ; 
And having prayed together, we 
Will go with you along. 

We have short time to stay, as you, 

We have as short a spring ; 
As quick a growth to meet decay 

As you, or anything. 
We die, 

As your hours do, and dry 
Away 

Like to the summer's rain ; 
Or as the pearls of morning dew, 

Ne'er to be found again.' 

Besides the grace that is inseparable from all Herrick's 
compositions, we have here that sympathy with Nature 
which made good his claim to the title of poet. Flowers, 
music, woman, all these had their intense and several 
charms for him, and, strangely enough for a middle-aged 
clergyman, he was clearly an amorous and erotic poet. 
There is a tinge of sensuousness about all that he does, 
which sometimes exceeds the limits of a later age. But 
all his poems to Julia are singular for their beauty. Take 
the Night Piece addressed to her : — 

' Her eyes the glowworm lend thee, 
The shooting stars attend thee, 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 383 

And the elves also, 
Whose little eyes glow 
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. 

No Will-o'-th'-wisp mislight thee; 
Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee ; 

But on, on thy way, 

Not making a stay. 
Since ghost there's none to affright thee. 

Let not the dark thee cumber ; 

What though the moon does slumber ? 

The stars of the night, 

Will lend thee their light 
Like tapers clear, without number. 

Then, Julia, let me woo thee, 
Thus, thus to come unto me, 

And when I shall meet 

Thy silvery feet. 
My soul I'll pour into thee.' 

The age in which Herrick lived, and in which he wrote 
such verses as these, was distinguished for its poetic ex- 
cellence, and its indulgence in fancy and conceit. 
Another writer to whom slight reference lias been made, 
George Wither, was of the same school as Herrick, and 
almost his equal in tenderness and delicacy of treatment. 
Sir John Suckling was also a great master in the art, 
though he is frequently robbed of his true honours. His 
Ballad upon a Wedding is one of the most naturally- 



384 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



expressed poems in the language. How these stanzas 
make us realise the charming being whom he de- 
scribes ! — 

' Her feet beneath her petticoat, 
Like httle mice, stole in and out, 

As if they feared the hght : 
But O ! she dances such a way ! 
No sun upon an Easter-day 
Is half so fine a sight. 

Her cheeks, so rare a white was on, 
No daisy makes comparison ; 

Who sees them is undone ; 
For streaks of red were mingled there, 
Such as are on a Cath'rine pear. 

The side that's next the sun. 

Her lips were red ; and one was thin. 
Compared to that was next her chin, 

Some bee had stung it newly ; 
But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face, 
I durst no more upon them gaze, 

Than on the sun in July.' 

We have now glanced sufficiently at this early poetry 
to apprehend its character by the aid of the examples 
given. Its great feature is its naturalness. All its 
similes and its reflections are drawn from outward 
objects. The close breath of cities does not seem to 
have tainted the souls of the poets, who revel in flowers, 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 385 

and woods, and meads, which are the springs of laughter, 
joy, and pathos to them. 

Advancing a stage, we arrive at the minor poets of 
the Restoration. While not missing a great portion of 
the sweetness which belonged to their earlier brethren, 
we find that their prevailing characteristic is sentiment, 
sometimes degenerating into exaggeration. The age of 
Charles II. being famous for its gallantry, the courtly 
poets fill their pages with an extravagant homage to the 
women of the day. Now and then the adulatory ama- 
tory poetry of Lovelace, Montrose, Rochester, and their 
confreres affects the reader as being what the Americans 
would describe as ' high falutin',' and the point of a com- 
pliment is often made absurd by its prodigious un- 
suitability and extravagance ; but in the verse of this 
period there still remains the genuine ring of song. The 
cavalier hangs his heart upon his sleeve, and talks loudly 
enough about it, it is true. He is more than Cupid's 
follower ; he is the little god's very humble slave. There 
is a certain lightness of touch in Lovelace's ballads that 
we rarely meet with elsewhere, and his lines written to 
Althea from prison are ' familiar in our mouths as house- 
hold words.' He reaches a loftier strain when he serenely 
asserts in immortal lines that though immured between 
stone walls he is nevertheless free. Sedley, justly famous 

c c 



386 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

for his songs, and as justly infamous for his dissolute 
character, is the author of the charming lyric, ^ Phillis is 
my only Joy.' Buckingham was a man of a lower order 
of talent than these, and yet — through the adventitious 
aid derived from his position at Court — his pieces spread 
far and wide, though nobody cares for them now. There 
is no power in them, though there is sometimes a facile 
execution. Dryden, it will be remembered, described 
Buckingham in the character of Zimri as one who 

' In the course of one revolving moon 
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.' 

He wrote the fashionable verses of his time from an 
ovenveening conceit which would not suffer him to be 
behind his contemporaries, and never stayed to ask him- 
self whether he possessed the necessary gifts. The Earl 
of Rochester had a more genuine vein ; but one cannot 
avoid the impression that most of the singers of his 
time had simply a parrot-like title to fame. Sackville, 
Earl of Dorset, was stronger than any of those just 
named, and his stirring ballad, ' To all you Ladies now 
on Land,' written the night before an engagement with 
the Dutch, is as widely known as any of Dibdin's songs. 
Even in the navy debates of the House of Commons 
during the last year some of its admirable lines were 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 387 

quoted. The effeminacy which so strongly marked the 
poetry of the time is completely eliminated from this 
ballad, which possesses both a fine swing and epigram- 
matic force. 

But a poet who lived slightly anterior to those we 
mentioned, the brilliant Marquis of Montrose — who was 
even still readier with the sword — appears to have ex- 
celled them all, with the exception of Lovelace — that is, 
in the poetry of love. He has almost dropped out of 
recollection now, but the whole of the ballad from 
which the following verses are extracted is of equal 
merit : — 

' My dear and only love, I pray 

That little world of thee 
Be governed by no other sway 

Than purest monarchy ; 
For if confusion have a part, 

Which virtuous souls abhor, 
And hold a synod in thine heart, 

ril never love thee more. 

As Alexander I will reign. 

And I will reign alone ; 
My thoughts did evermore disdain 

A rival on my throne. 
He either fears his fate too much, 

Or his deserts are small, 
Who dares not put it to the touch, 

To gain or lose it all. 



388 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

But if thou wilt prove faithful, then, 

And constant of thy word, 
I'll make thee glorious by my pen, 

And famous by my sword ; 
I'll serve thee in such noble ways 

Was never heard before ; 
I'll crown and deck thee all with bays. 

And love thee more and more.' 

Edmund Waller, however, has left behind him a 
name more durable in connection with this class of poetry 
than any other man of his century. It is to be hoped he 
was more constant in his friendships than he was in his 
politics. Having twanged the lyre, and beautifully too, 
in praise of Cromwell, he afterwards poured forth con- 
gratulatory strains for Charles II. There was no element 
of greatness in his compositions ; possessing as much 
sweetness as Milton, he yet was a perfect contrast to 
him in all other respects. Compared with the grand old 
blind poet, he was a rose beside an oak. There was 
fragrance, but no stability, and he rapidly fell to pieces. 
Yet even from the dried leaves of the rose, w^hich have 
been preserved, we can extract pleasant odours. His 
imagination was not of a striking order, and his verse is 
more distinguished for its finish than for any other 
quality ; indeed in this respect he has scarcely had an 
equal since. His * Go, lovely Rose,' which we have 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 389 

already had occasion to mention, and ' Lines on a 
Girdle,' are the best specimens we possess of his writing, 
but these are matchless in their way. Had he owned a 
larger and more sincere nature we might have had in 
him a great poet. 

We can hardly assign a place amongst these canary- 
birds to the Satanic muse of Swift. He was a bird of 
prey in comparison with them, and threw too much of 
passion and hatred into the most playful of his verses to 
be ranked with such singers. But what force and 
command of language, of metre, and of rhyme ! what a 
mastery of all he touched ! We prefer for our present 
purpose to take him in his gentlest mood, and to trans- 
cribe a few lines to Stella, which might have been written 
by a man who had not betrayed another woman. 

' Stella, say, what evil tongue 
Reports you are no longer young ; 
That Time sits with his scythe to mow 
Where erst sat Cupid with his bow ; 
That half your locks are turned to grey ? 
rU ne'er believe a word they say. 
'Tis true, but let it not be known, 
My eyes are somewhat dimmish grown : 
For Nature, always in the right, 
To your decay adapts my sight ; 
And wrinkles undistinguish'd pass. 
For I'm ashamed to use a glass ; 



390 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

And till I see them with these eyes, 
Whoever says you have them, lies. 
No length of tin\e can make you quit 
Honour and virtue, sense and wit ; 
Thus you may still be young to me, 
While I can better hear than see. 
O ne'er may Fortune show her spite. 
To make me deaf, and mend my sight.' 

One other name amongst the earlier minor poets 
must arrest oin* attention before we come to those of the 
nineteenth century. In alluding to Matthew Prior, we 
cannot do better than quote Cowper's words upon our 
whole subject. 'Every man conversant with verse- 
making knows, and knows by painful experience, that 
the familiar style is of all styles the most difficult to, 
succeed in. To make verse speak the language of prose 
without being prosaic, to marshal the words of it in such 
an order as they might naturally take in falling from the 
lips of an extemporary speaker, yet without meanness, 
harmoniously, elegantly, and without seeming to displace 
a syllable for the sake of the rhyme, is one of the most 
arduous tasks a poet can undertake. He that could 
accomphsh this task was Prior. Many have imitated his 
excellence in this particular, but the best copies have 
fallen short of the original.' This is a generous tribute, 
coming as it does from one who was himself no mean 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 391 

adept in the same art. Cowper, though he has much 
sense and humour, is no match for Prior in this un- 
pretending kind of poetry. The French are more 
exquisite than ourselves in drawing-room verses, and 
there is a decided smack of their quaUty in Prior. 
It has been remarked of him that he ' drank Burgundy 
in its own vineyard.' But he was a sad, roUicking dog, 
this author of * Solomon,' and exactly after his patron, 
the Earl of Dorset's, own heart. Prior rose from the 
humblest rank of life to occupy a position of some im- 
portance in the State. He was born at Abbot Street, in 
Dorsetshire, but early removed to London with his father, 
who kept a tavern called the ' Rummer Inn,' at Charing 
Cross, and it was here in the garb of a waiter that Lord 
Dorset one day discovered the future poet reading 
Horace. Acting the part of a generous patron, Dorset 
sent the youth to St. John's, Cambridge, of which College 
he afterwards became a Fellow. After leaving the 
university, Prior, in conjunction with Montagu, wrote 
' The Town and Country Mouse,' which opened a path 
for him to the diplomatic service. Promotion was only 
a question of time, and accordingly we find that during 
his somewhat chequered existence he filled the offices of 
Secretary at the Hague, and at the Court of Versailles, 
and Commissioner of Trade. His life was a singular 



392 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

mixture of noble feeling and dissoluteness. Fickle in 
the extreme, and an easy prey to the wiles of the 
other sex, he was frequently reduced to the very depths 
of degradation and poverty. As a writer his longer 
poems have not many claims to a lasting remembrance ; 
but his shorter pieces justly deserve all the fame they 
have acquired. They come barely short of perfection ; 
Prior strives hard after obtaining a classic grace and 
just misses it. As a specimen of the finished character 
of his verses we cite one of his short odes : — 

' The merchant, to secure his treasure, 
Conveys it in a borrowed name : 
Euphelia serves to grace my measure, 
But Chloe is my real flame. 

My softest verse, my darling lyre, 

Upon Euphelia's toilet lay — 
When Chloe noted her desire 

That I should sing, that I should play. 

My lyre I tune, my voice I raise, 
But with my numbers mix my sighs ; 

And whilst I sing Euphelia's praise, 
I fix my soul on Chloe's eyes. 

Fair Chloe blushed : Euphelia frowned : 
I sang, and gazed ; I played and trembled ; 

And Venus to the Loves around 

Remarked how ill we all dissembled.' 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 393 

And thus the poet spent his time between his Chloes and 
EupheHas, constant to none, but writing charmingly of 
each. All his poetry has a devil-may-care air about it ; 
it gives the impression that it was written by a man who 
found himself in a world where there was much that 
ministers to pleasure, and who meant to suck its sweets 
to the uttermost. The complete absence of conscious- 
ness that life had in it something nobler than animal 
pleasure deprived his poetry of the high tone which 
should give a flavour even to light and unpretentious 
verse. Whenever Bacchus and Venus are the poet's 
gods we may look for enervation in his intellectual off- 
spring. That taint of scepticism in his nature of which 
an eminent French critic writes — and which he declares 
was transferred to Voltaire, and was not of the latter's 
own originating — is apparent in Prior's lines to his 
SDuI : — 

* Poor little, pretty, fluttering thing, 

Must we no longer live together 1 
And dost thou prune thy trembling wing. 
To take thy flight thou know'st not whither 1 

Thy humourous vein, thy pleasing folly, 

Lie all neglected, all forgot : 
And pensive, wavering, melancholy 

Thou dread'st and hop'st thou know'st not what.^ 

Occasionally he had a satirical touch which was very 



394 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



pointed if not great. If he could not stab with the 
rapier he could prick with the needle. He describes in 
one of his effusions a remedy that is worse than the 

disease : — 

' I sent for Ratcliffe ; was so ill, 

That other doctors gave me over : 
He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill, 
And I was likely to recover. 

But when the wit began to wheeze, 
And wine had warm'd the politician. 

Cured yesterday of my disease, 
I died last night of my physician.' 

Mat. Prior was held in high esteem by the most com- 
petent of his contemporaries, with whom he lived on 
excellent terms. But the judgment upon him must be 
that he faithfully represented in himself the folhes of his 
time. His verse is flexible, sparkling, and flowing ; at 
times, but very seldom, it merits higher praise ; yet there 
was no one in his own day who wrote such verse so well. 
His views of woman, society, life, and pleasure were 
those almost of the lowest stratum, though his power 
over his art was so great that he could frequently counter- 
feit sentiments of a higher order. 

As we approach our own times, Winthrop Mackworth 
Praed may be said to enjoy the distinction of having hit 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 395 



upon a new vein of poetry, and of having been himself 
its happiest explorer. Without possessing the highest 
gifts of the poet, his smoothness and elegance have 
earned for him his reputation. It is not a little singular 
that his great ambition should have been to distinguish 
himself in a very different field from that with which his 
name is principally associated. He became a subor- 
dinate member of Sir Robert Peel's first administration, 
and an effective speaker in the House of Commons. 
His career was cut short by his death from consumption, 
at a moment when he was beginning to put forth broader 
and more sympathetic views than those wliich animated 
the great bulk of the Conservative party. His spirit was 
keen and eager, and the great incentive to all he did 
was the desire to excel. This passion mastered his 
whole being ; and the momentary earnestness he 
threw into every successive undertaking was probably 
instrumental in undermining his constitution. Praed 
takes us into another atmosphere altogether from that 
in which Swift and Prior moved. Even satire had 
become good-natured and love decorous. We discover 
no single line which could not be read aloud in the 
most fastidious circle. Praed has the sweetness of a 
summer's night, and his wit represents the twinkling of 
the stars. Yet, in the midst of all his gaiety, in some of 



396 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

his poems a tinge of melancholy seems to indicate a 
premature weariness of life : — 

^ I think that very few have sighed 

When Fate at last has found them, 
Though bitter foes were by their side, 

And barren moss around them ; 
I think that some have died of drought, 

And some have died of drinking ; 
I think that nought is worth a thought — 

And I'm a fool for thinking ! ' 

But, again, he resumes in a more sprightly and hopeful 
tone : — 

' I think that friars and their hoods. 

Their doctrines and their maggots. 
Have lighted up too many feuds, 

And far too many faggots ; 
I think, while zealots fast and frown, 

And fight for two or seven, 
That there are fifty roads to Town, 

And rather more to Heaven.' 

The satire of Praed always conveys the impression that 
it is veiled. The poet is so vivacious, and so longs for 
all men to be blithe, that he strikes rather with the back 
of his sword than with its edge. There is the flash of 
the blade in air, but something arrests its descent — some 
sudden second impulse in the spirit of him who wields it. 
From a very early period in life Praed gave himself up to 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 397 



the writing of light and amusing verse, and the magazine 
he edited at Eton contained much that was choice and 
sparkHng. Macaulay had aheady shown that these 
amusements were not unworthy of a man of genius, and 
his Valentine to Lady Mary Stanhope, written after his 
return from India, is a capital illustration of the style of 
verse written by literary men in leisure hours. The 
stately verse of the Whig historian, as we find it in the 
* Lays of Ancient Rome,' is far in advance of any serious 
poetry written by Praed; but, on the other hand, the 
latter excelled his distinguished collaborateur in the 
poetry of the drawing-room. His work is all executed 
with a care and minuteness which are very admirable. 
He knew exactly the precise amount of seriousness to 
infuse into his lines, and we are never wearied with too 
much sermonising. Could there be anything better of 
its kind than his portrait of ' Quince,' who stands out in 
bold relief, in pure flesh and blood, with his last words 
on bidding farewell to the world ? — 

' My debts are paid — but Nature's debt 

Almost escaped my recollection ; 
Tom ! we shall meet again, and yet 
I cannot leave you my direction ! ' 

And with what fluency and whimsicality of expression he 
describes his Vicar ! — 



398 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

* His talk was like a stream which runs 
With rapid change from rock to roses ; 
It slipped from politics to puns ; 

It passed from Mahomet to Moses : 
Beginning with the laws that keep 

The planets in their radiant courses, 
And ending with some precept deep 
For dressing eels or shoeing horses. 
***** 

He did not think all mischief fair, 

Although he had a knack of joking ; 
He did not make himself a bear. 

Although he had a taste for smoking : 
And when religious sects ran mad, 

He held, in spite of all his learning, 
That if a man's belief is bad, 

It will not be improved by burning. 

And he was kind, and loved to sit 

In the low hut or garnished cottage. 
And praise the farmer's homely wit, 

And share the widow's homelier pottage : 
At his approach complaint grew mild, 

And when his hand unbarred the shutter, 
The clammy lips of fever smiled 

The welcome which they could not utter.' 

This is not poetry to move the world ; there is no vehe- 
mence of passion in it, but it is true drawing in quiet lines, 
and more powerful than the mere form of it will suffer to 
appear. The emotional element was not over- developed 
in the author or he would sometimes have been able to 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 399 

give to his sketches just that complementary strength 
which would have made several of them great. If he has 
not the highest command over the pathetic, however, in 
a certain flow of humour he is unapproachable. A 
specimen of this is found in his reminiscences of the old 
school-days at Eton, where he describes the school and 
his school-fellows. He could throw round attachments 
of this kind an indescribable charm. Another character 
entitled ' The Belle of the Ball-room,' though not so 
clever and clearly cut in every line, is more humourous 
than ' The Vicar.' Even his love verses took a semi- 
humourous form : — 

' Our love was like most other loves ; 

A little glow, a little shiver, 
A rose-bud, and a pair of gloves, 

And " Fly not yet " upon the river : 
Some jealousy of some one's heir. 

Some hopes of dying broken-hearted, 
A miniature, a lock of hair, 

The usual vows — and then we parted. 

We parted ; months and years rolled by ; 

We met again four summers after : 
Our parting was all sob and sigh ; 

Our meeting was all mirth and laughter ; 
For in my heart's most secret cell 

There had been many other lodgers ; 
And she was not the ball-room's belle, 

But only — Mrs. Something Rogers.' 



400 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 



Although Praed's more pretentious poems exhibit 
considerable taste and the same wonderful facility for 
rhyming, they are evidently not penned in his most 
natural vein. Not equal to the music of higher poets they 
pale still further, and are somewhat dull and heavy reading, 
when compared with stanzas such as those we have been 
quoting, and which have in them the sparkle and the fizz 
of champagne. His serious w^ork has a reminiscence of 
the same flavour, but the spirit has fled. We are dealing 
with him only as a writer of fugitive verse, for he is one 
of the men who will be remembered longer for the trifles 
in which he succeeded than for the greater undertakings 
in which he failed. Racy, graphic, witty, and brilliant, he 
was just such a poet as the society in which he moved 
demanded : and, as he had a decided scintillation of 
genius, he was able to endow his fancies with more per- 
manence than it is usual for such verse to attain. 

But Praed must not bHnd us to the merits of other 
writers contemporary with him who are in danger of pass- 
ing from recollection. Peacock the novelist, author of 
^ Headlong Hall ' and many other remarkable works, had 
a decided gift in verse, though he seldom made use of it. 
His poem of ' Love and Age ' is amongst the best of its 
kind, and may well entitle him to mention here. Now 
and then his contempt for preconceived notions, and the 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 401 

bitterness of his soul, oozed out, as when he wrote upon 
the rich and poor : — 

* The poor man's sins are glaring ; 
In the face of ghostly warning 
He is caught in the fact 
Of an overt act — 
Buying greens on Sunday morning. 

The rich man has a cellar, 
And a ready butler by him ; 

The poor must steer 

For his pint of beer 
Where the Saint can't choose but spy him. 

The rich man is invisible 

In the crowd of his gay society ; 

But the poor man's delight 

Is a sore in the sight, 
And a stench in the nose of piety.' 

Yet Peacock's nature was too caustic for a writer of light 
verse. A much better man in this respect was Luttrell, 
whose social talents were of a high order. He had not 
the genius of a Praed, but at times nevertheless showed 
much happiness in expression. One could scarcely 
imagine, for instance, a better or more perfect epigram 
than this on the distinguished singer, Miss Tree : — 

* On this Tree, if a nightingale settles and sings, 
The Tree will return her as good as she brings.' 

D D 



402 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Liittrell wrote a lengthy poem styled ' Advice to Julia,' 
which contains many witty descriptions of life in the 
upper classes of society, and a most amusing description 
of London fog and smoke. His ' Ampthill Park ' shows 
that he possessed no mean powers of poetical description. 
Of various things which he wrote may be mentioned his 
verses to Lady Granville, his epigram on Moore's verses 
being translated into Persian and sung in the streets of 
Ispahan, and the lines still inscribed in Rogers's arbour 
at Holland House. On this same arbour it will be re- 
membered Lord Holland penned the pretty conceit — 

* Here Rogers sat, and here for ever dwell, 
To me, those " Pleasures " that he sang so well' 

One of Luttrell's efforts was a iour de force in rhyming 

on * Burnham Beeches.' Some of the stanzas run as 

follows : — 

' What though my tributary lines 
Be less like Pope's than Creech's, 
The theme, if not the poet, shines. 
So bright are Burnham Beeches. 

O'er many a dell and upland walk, 

Their sylvan beauty reaches ; 
Of Birnam-Wood let Scotland talk, 

While we've our Burnham Beeches. 

If sermons be in stones, I'll bet 
Our vicar, when he preaches, 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 403 



He'd find it easier far to get 
A hint from Burnham Beeches. 



Here bards have mused, here lovers true 

Have dealt in softest speeches, 
While suns declined, and, parting, threw 

Their gold o'er Burnham Beeches. 

O ne'er may v/oodman's axe resound, 

Nor tempest, making breaches 
In the sweet shade that cools the ground 

Beneath our Burnham Beeches. 

Hold ! though I'd fain be jingling on, 

My power no further reaches — 
Again that rhyme ? enough — I've done : 

Farewell to Burnham Beeches.' 

It would be idle to recapitulate what Moore has 
accomplished in the way of light lyrical verse, seeing that 
his songs are almost as widely known as the language 
itself. Other poets must be passed over who do not 
depend upon their lighter achievements for fame — as 
Pope, Cowper, Mrs. Browning, Lord Byron, Campbell, 
Coleridge, Hood, Sheridan, and Rogers. Two names, 
nevertheless, warrant a slight pause — those of Thackeray 
and Walter Savage Landor. The former has bequeathed 
to us two or three pieces of light verse, exquisite of their 
kind. One is ' The Cane-bottomed Chair,' whose 
simple description and pathos must have touched all who 



404 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

have read it. Easy, natural, and flowing, it is as good as 
anything that Praed ever wrote, and has gHmpses of 
endowments which he did not possess. With all his 
wonderful finish there was not the same width in Praed 
as in Thackeray ; and had he not achieved one of the 
highest reputations as a novelist, the latter would have 
gained no inconsiderable place as a singer of every-day 
life. Imagination was absent in him ; but humour, 
satire, playfulness, tenderness, were abundant. 'The 
Ballad of Bouillabaisse ' might serve as a model of most 
of these qualities. Its writer shows here, as in other 
poems, the wonderful attachment he felt for old things, 
old places, and old faces. His riper genius loved to 
dwell on characters which were simple-hearted, and 
through the medium of his verse he talks to us in a 
pleasanter vem than in his novels. His ' Peg of Lima- 
vaddy ' has been a thousand times spoken of for its light 
dancing music, in which it is unapproachable except by 
Father Prout's ' Bells of Shandon ; ' and it has the 
manifest advantage over the latter in that it possesses a 
human interest, whilst Prout's lines are simply musical — 
almost nonsensical — and nothing more. But of all 
Thackeray's lyrics commend us to the one ' At the 
Church Gate,' for simplicity, beauty, and sweetness : — 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS, 405 

^ Although I enter not, 
Yet round about the spot 

Ofttimes I hover ! 
And near the Sacred Gate 
With longing eyes I wait, 

Expectant of her. 
♦ ♦ ♦ * 

My lady comes at last. 
Timid, and stepping fast. 

And hastening hither 
With modest eyes downcast : 
She comes — she's here — she's past — 

May Heav'n go with her. 

Kneel undisturb'd, fair Saint ; 
Pour out your praise or plaint 

Meekly and duly : 
I will not enter there. 
To sully your pure prayer 

With thoughts unruly. 

But suffer me to pace 
Round the forbidden place, 

Lingering a minute, 
Like outcast spirits who wait 
And see through Heaven's gate 

Angels within it.' 

In a somewhat similar vein of refined feeling, and with 
a genuine classical grace, Walter Savage Landor wrote: — 

' The maid I love ne'er thought of me 
Amid the scenes of gaiety ; 



4o6 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

But when her heart or mine sank low, 
Ah, then it was no longer so. 

From the slant palm she raised her head, 
And kissed the cheek whence youth had fled. 
Angels ! some future day for this, 
Give her as sweet and pure a kiss.' 

There is something glowing, soft, and Oriental about 
Landor's genius. He stands alone in his gifts as clearly 
as any poet. Some of his minor works are worthy of a 
place in the Greek anthology. 

Lord Houghton is another poet who has translated 
into graceful verse the impressions gained from society ; 
but he possesses a stronger and a fresher air than belong 
to the poets of society generally. Music and thought are 
what he gives us rather than point and dashing descrip- 
tion. In his quiet strains we come sometimes upon re- 
flections of considerable depth, and the shadow of the 
literary devotee always falls athwart his pages. We like 
his utter freedom from artificiality ; his range of poetic 
powers is not of the highest order, but there is scarcely a 
poet who could be named who has done so uniformly 
well in all themes selected for treatment. Those who 
attach no merit to dealing with ordinar}- and every-day 
subjects, might attempt to detract from Lord Houghton's 
praise by affirming that he too often recurs to such 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 407 

topics : but it ought to be recognised fully by this time that 
it requires no ordinary gift to treat of homely things in 
a successful manner. And he has the especial merit of 
looking beneath the surface of things and touching the 
springs of life and thought which are in the heart. On one 
occasion he sings of 

' A sense of an earnest will, 

To help the lowly living, 

And a terrible heart-thrill 

If you have no power of giving : 

An arm of aid to the weak, 

A friendly hand to the friendless, 

Kind words, so short to speak, 

But whose echo is endless.' 

Everyone is acquainted with the song ' I wandered 
by the Brook Side,' which is a happy specimen of the 
minor lyric j but many others could be cited of equal 
value, including the pretty pastoral verses commencing 
' When long upon the scales of Fate.' 

Amongst the best living writers of this kind of verse 
must indisputably be placed Mr. Frederick Locker ; and 
for this reason it will be well to give his work a some- 
what closer inspection. There are two distinct sides to 
his talent, both of which find adequate representation in 
his ' London Lyrics.' In a note appended to these 
lyrics, which is one of the cleverest pieces of writing in 
the volume, the author has given a faithful summary of 



4o8 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

the requirements of that branch of the poetic art to which 
he is devoted. He says — and his words will help to find 
the clue for understanding his own claims upon us — 
' Light lyrical verse should be short, elegant, refined, and 
fanciful, not seldom distinguished by chastened sentiment, 
and often playful. The tone should not be pitched 
high, and it should be idiomatic, the rhythm crisp and 
sparkling, the rhyme frequent and never forced, while 
the entire poem should be marked by tasteful moderation, 
high finish, and completeness ; for however trivial the 
subject matter may be, indeed rather in proportion to its 
triviality, subordination to the rules of composition, and 
perfection of execution should be strictly enforced. 
Each piece cannot be expected to exhibit all these 
characteristics, but the qualities of brevity and buoyancy 
are essential.* But he concludes these remarks by a con- 
fession that his volume may contain a few pieces which 
' ought to have been consigned to the dustbin of im- 
mediate oblivion.' That is possible ; we cannot com- 
mend all alike. The writer of these trifles is in constant 
danger of falling into triviality or childishness. But if he 
amuses us we are not disposed to put butterflies on the 
rack, or to ask of him more than he aspires to give. Mr. 
Locker is not quite so elegant, perhaps, as his forerunner 
Praed ; but he is more sprightly and humourous. Live- 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 409 

liness, and what we should call the humour of surprise, are 
two of his distinguishing features. These qualities shine 
in the verses entitled ' Episode in the Story of a Muff/ 
The reader is kept on the tiptoe of expectation till the 
very last line, and the revulsion of feeling then ex- 
perienced is due to a very unexpected stroke of drollery. 

* She's jealous ! Am I sorry ? No ! 
I like to see my Mabel so, 

Carina mia I 
Poor Puss ? That now and then she draws 
Conclusions, not without a cause. 
Is my idea. 

We love ; and I'm prepared to prove 
That jealousy is kin to love 

In constant women. 
My jealous Pussy cut up rough 
The day before I bought her muff 

With sable trimming. 

These tearful darlings think to quell us 
By being so divinely jealous ; 

But I know better. 
Hillo ! Who's that 1 A damsel ! come, 
I'll follow ; no, I can't, for some 

One else has met her. 

What fun ! He looks a lad of grace ! 
She holds her muff to hide her face ; 

They kiss,— the sly Puss ! 
Hillo ! Her muff — it's trimmed with sable ! 
It's like the muff I gave to Mabel ! . . . 

Good Lord, she's my Pjcss / ' 



4IO POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

A similar surprise, though not of so humourous a nature, 

follows the reading of ' The Old Cradle,' which is amongst 

the lyrics that have deservedly become general favourites. 

Mr. Locker sees the emptiness of life, and pursues like 

every poet the unattainable ideal, and yet is able to 

extract a modicum of enjoyment in the pursuit. The 

knowledge that things * are not (exactly) what they seem ' 

is not to be suffered to make him miserable. It cannot, 

for instance, stop his song — 

' If life an empty bubble be. 
How sad for those who cannot sec 
The rainbow in the bubble ! ' 

Whatever may be the case with society in the nineteenth 
century, or a large portion of it, at any rate there is no 
blase air in Mr. Locker's verses. To read them makes 
one cheerful, and causes us to lose the sensation of 
selfishness and isolation which the individual course of life 
is apt to create. To write with ease and simplicity strains 
which shall touch the peasant and the peer is no small 
achievement, and when the poet attains to that he needs 
no other raison d'etre. Some writers have not that airy 
quicksilver spirit which catches momentary impressions of 
grace and beauty ; they are too cold and too severe, and 
hence their works are not adapted to any mood or any 
person. The true writer of occasional verse has the 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 411 

advantage of his stronger intellectual brother in this 
respect. He never comes amiss; his music is ever 
welcome and refreshing. We do not require him to fill 
us with awe, to dilate on the grandeur of nature, and to 
discuss the great problems of life and mind. We ask 
him to speak to us as a brother, to laugh with us as in 
the family circle, and, if need be, to moui;n with us as a 
friend. But this poet of society does not always sing 
with the cap and bells on. Now and then, though very 
seldom, he must draw from the fount of tears. He will 
do it tenderly, but it must be done, for life is not made 
up entirely of either the grave or the gay. He knows 
that every man has his * skeleton in the cupboard,' and 
there is nothing to be gained in blinking the fact. 
Having, therefore, an unpleasant subject* to encounter, 
but also a most pressing one, this is how he must deal 
with it : — 

^ "We hug this phantom we detest, 
We rarely let it cross our portals : 
It is a most exacting guest — 

Now, are we not afflicted mortals ? 

Your neighbour, Gay, that jovial wight, 
As Dives rich, and brave as Hector — 

Poor Gay steals twenty times a night. 
On shaking knees, to see his spectre. 



412 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Ah me, the world ! How fast it spins ! 

The beldames dance, the caldron bubbles ; 
They shriek, and stir it for our sins, 

And we must drain it for our troubles. 

We toil, we groan ; the cry for love 

Mounts upwards from the seething city, 

And yet I know we have above 
A Father, infinite in pity.' 

And thus our poet, in his quiet and unobtrusive 
manner, becomes a moral teacher. The verses we have 
just quoted are from Mr. Locker's serious poems, and 
may serve to correct a very prevalent but erroneous 
notion respecting his poetry. He has acquired so con- 
spicuous a position as a writer of vers desociete that people 
are in the habit of speaking of him as though he never 
wrote anything else. True, if the scope of this class of 
verse be A'astly widened, and in the manner we have 
indicated, all he has written would come under the 
definition. But if the narrow, restricted meaning be 
taken, then there is a side of Mr. Locker's work which 
has been completely misapprehended. He manifests a 
lode of much richer quaHty than is ever witnessed in mere 
fugitive verse. Thus in 'The Widow's Mite' there is a 
vein of genuine pathos : — 

* A widow — she had only one ! 
A puny and decrepit son ; 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 413 

But, day and night, 
Though fretful oft, and weak and small, 
A loving child, he was her all — 

The Widow's Mite. 

The Widow's Mite — ay, so sustained. 
She battled onward, nor complain'd 

Though friends were fewer : 
And while she toil'd for daily fare 
A little crutch upon the stair 

Was music to her. 

I saw her then, — and now I see 

That, though resign'd and cheerful, she 

Has sorrowed much : 
She has, He gave it tenderly, 
Much faith ; and carefully laid by, 

A little crutch.' 

One other copy of verses we must quote from Mr. 
Locker before quitting this portion of his writings. * The 
unrealised Ideal ' seems to us not only to be full of a 
sweet naturalness, but to catch the very echo of regret 
It is not unworthy of Schiller or of Heine : — 

* My only love is always near, — 
In country or in town 
I see her twinkling feet, I hear 
The whisper of her gown. 

She foots it ever fair and young, 

Her locks are tied in haste. 
And one is o'er her shoulder flung, 

And hangs below her waist. 



4T4 POETS AND NOVELISTS, 

She ran before me in the meads ; 

And down this world-worn track 
She leads me on ; but while she leads 

She never gazes back. 

And yet her voice is in my dreams, 

To witch me more and more ; 
That wooing voice ! Ah me, it seems 

Less near me than of yore. 

Lightly I sped when hope was high, 
And youth beguil'd the chase, — 

I follow, follow still ; but I 
Shall never see her face.' 

There is not much visible sign of deterioration in the 
public taste when these and similar true and melodious 
strains remain popular. In other respects Mr. Locker 
has one of the best gifts which the writer of this class of 
verse ought to. possess — viz., spontaneity. We do not 
remember any of his pieces which it was in the least 
tedious to read. It does not follow, however, that 
verses which have apparently so spontaneous an air have 
been written with ease ; on the contrary, they are often 
produced with the greatest care, and very seldom given 
forth to the world till they have undergone a long process 
of elaboration and finish. The most exquisite lyrics of 
the Poet Laureate, those which from their sweet flow 
and naturalness seem to have been most readily com- 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 415 

posed, are really the productions of intense and constant 
effort. 

Of Mr. Locker's humour we have as yet said little, 
and some reference to it is almost imperative, seeing that 
it permeates more than three-fourths of what he has 
written. More than any writer almost he interweaves it 
with some serious threads, as in the lines on ' A Human 
Skull ' — of which lines, it may be noted, Thackeray had 
a very exalted opinion : — 

' A human skull ! I bought it passing cheap ! 
Indeed 'twas dearer to its first employer ! 
I thought mortality did well to keep 

Some mute memento of the Old Destroyer. 

Time was, some may have prized its blooming skin ; 

Her lips were woo'd, perhaps, in transport tender ; 
Some may have chuck'd what was a dimpled chin. 

And never had my doubt about, its gender ! 

Did she live yesterday, or ages back ? 

What colour were the eyes when bright and waking ? 
And were your ringlets fair, or brown, or black. 

Poor little head ! that long has done with aching? 

It may have held (to shoot some random shots) 
Thy brains, Eliza Fry, or Baron Byron's ; 

The wits of Nelly Gwynne, or Doctor Watts — 
Two quoted bards ! two philanthropic sirens ? 

But this I trust is clearly understood. 

If man or woman ; if adored or hated ; 
Whoever own'd this skull was not so good. 

Not quite so bad as many may have stated. 



4i6 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

Who love can need no special type of Death ; 

He bares his awful face too soon, too often ; 
Immortelles bloom in beauty's bridal ^^•reath, 

And does not yon green elm contain a coffin ? 

O true-love mine, what lines of care are these ? 

The heart still lingers with its golden hours, 
But fading tints are on the chestnut trees, 

And where is all that lavish wealth of flowers ? 

The end is near. Life lacks what once it gave, 
Yet death has promises that call for praises ; 

A very worthless rogue may dig the grave. 

But hands unseen will dress the turf with daisies.' 

Thus we get beaten out for us pure and noble thoughts 
when the skilled hand turns over the old skull. These 
verses are worthy of all the praise that has been bestowed 
upon them, and betoken the possession of a power of 
secret analysis and comparison. Mark, also, how the 
writer has contrived, not to suppress the humourous 
thoughts which divided his brain with those more purely 
reflective, but simply to veil the humour, so that we 
see it shining through the sombre substance of the 
verses. 

In a more spiightly vein Mr. Locker sings : — 

' The world's a sorry wench, akin 
To all that's frail and frightful : 
The world's as ugly, ay, as Sin — 
And almost as delightful ! 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 417 

The world's a merry world {j)ro tern.) 
And some are gay, and therefore 

It pleases them, but some condemn 
The world they do not care for. 

The world's an ugly world. Offend 

Good people, how they wrangle ! 
The manners that they never mend. 

The characters they mangle ! 
They eat and drink, and scheme, and plod, 

And go to church on Sunday ; 
And many are afraid of God — 

And more of Mrs. Grundy.' 

To Mr. Locker, then, pertain the general excellences 
of extreme naturalness, simplicity, and fine human 
feeling, the last of which saturates all his poetry. Praed 
had more wit and fancy, but Mr. Locker has far more 
humour and pathos ; and if Praed drew some of his 
inspiration from Byron and Moore, his successor has 
been imbued with the sweeter and finer spirit of Words- 
worth and Charles Lamb. We consequently get more of 
the poet's heart in his verse. 

Mr. Locker's talent is in harmony with the spirit of 
the time. He lives so in the age and belongs so much 
to what is best in its society that he may fairly be 
remembered and quoted hereafter as a representative of 
the period. His earnestness and sincerity are very marked 
characteristics, and the genuineness of his song will 

E E 



41 8 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

provide against its extinction. His fancy is chaste and 
selective, his wit deHcate, his style polished and graceful, 
and it is possible that some of his light fabrics may 
outlive more stately and solid edifices. 

A word remains to be said of other living writers of 
this class, but there is little that merits a lengthened 
detention. Just as a passing reference must suffice for 
second-rate writers in generations which have recently 
expired — Haynes Bayly, the Hon. W. R. Spencer, 
Maginn, and others — so must a few sentences suffice for 
their successors. Yet, as we pass them by, we must 
reserve a place for the songs of Mrs. Arkwright, whose 
exquisite voice still vibrates in the ear, whilst some 
couplets of her composition linger in the memory. 
The following lines of hers may be new to many 
readers : — 

' I used to love the Winter cold, 
And when my daily task was done 
To roll the snowy ball, and hold 
My crystal daggers in the sun. 
How beautiful, how bright ! 
How soon they melt away, 
Till drop by drop they vanish quite — 
Ah ! well a day ! 

And then the Spring, the smiling Spring, 
The flowers, the fruit, the murmuring rill ! 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 419 

To chase the shadows o'er the hill 
And dance within the fairy ring. 
Ye flowers so bright and gay 
Within the garden wall, 
Ye'U meet again all smiling, all — 
Ah ! well a day ! 

Untir'd the Summer's heat to bear, 
Beneath the flow'ry load to bend, 
The mimic banquet to prepare, 
And share it with some joyous friend ! 
How soon the day is done — 
The longest summer day ! 
'Tis morn— 'tis noon — 'tis set of sun — 
Ah ! well a day ! ' 

The most promising of the younger writers of minor 
verse is Mr. Austin Dobson, whose ' Vignettes in Rhyme ' 
betoken considerable poetic fancy, though his wit is far 
inferior to that of Mr. Locker. ^ The succeeding stanzas, 
which are a fair example of Mr. Dobson's style, are 
taken from his poem suggested by a chapter in Mr. 
Theodore Martin's ' Horace : ' — 

' It is but fair to Mr. Dobson to say that I regard him as some- 
thing more than a writer simply of fugitive verse. There is a dis- 
tinct poetic vein in his work which should lead to something more 
ambitious than he has yet accomplished. He is not profound, but 
graceful. His more serious verses are the best of those which he 
has yet done, and should suggest to him his metier. He may yet 
prove a sweet and genial, though not a lofty and impassioned, 
singer. 



420 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

' " HORATIUS FLACCUS, B.C. 8," 
There's not a doubt about the date, — 

You're dead and buried : 
As you remarked, the seasons roll ; 
And 'cross the Styx full many a soul 

Has Charon ferried. 
Since, mourned of men and Muses nine, 
They laid you on the Esquiline. 
# ♦ * # • 

Ours is so far-advanced an age ! 
Sensation tales, a classic stage, 

Commodious villas ! 
We boast high art, an Albert Hall, 
Australian meat, and men who call 

Their sires gorillas ! 
We have a thousand things, you see, 
Not dreamt in your philosophy. 
***** 

Science proceeds, and man stands still ; 
Our " world " to-day's as good or ill, — 

As cultured (nearly), 
As yours was, Horace ! You alone, 
Unmatched, unmet, wc have not known.' 

The author of the ' Carols of Cockayne ' is deserving of 
mention for his humour and observation — he also ought to 
have given us more good work than he has done ; but 
the clever writer of ' The Bab Ballads ' scarcely comes 
under our category ; his effusions partake too much of 
the character of broad farce. Mr. Calverley, again, 



ENGLISH FUGITIVE POETS. 421 

whose parodies are very close and really brilliant, belongs 
to that school whose best exponents were James and 
Horace Smith, the incomparable authors of ' Rejected 
Addresses.' Mr. Mortimer Collins is a much nearer 
approach to what we require, but he has by no means 
done such good work as was expected of him. Lord 
Lytton's ' Fables in Song ' deserve to occupy a higher 
rank in poetry than such lyrics as form the basis of our 
reflections. They are full of thought — sometimes over- 
burdened with it ; but they have a graceful facility of 
versification which entitles their author to rank with many 
of our cultivated poets. 

The question may be asked, of what use is this 
Horatian poetry? but we apprehend it will be its own 
justification in the eyes of most lovers of the poetic art. 
The brooklet is not so imposing as the mighty river to 
which it is tributary, but its music may be as sweet and 
true. Men cannot always be climbing the magnificent 
passes of the Alps, but in the absence of sublime scenery 
does not the trimly cut and ordered garden present many 
points of attraction ? Thus, all singers have their proper 
seasons and uses. The minor poets unquestionably 
flourish best in seasons of national prosperity, not in 
those of stirring events. They are satisfied with what 
the world has to offer them, though in the best of them 



422 POETS AND NOVELISTS. 

there is a strain of genuine regret, testifying that this is 
not sufficient to satisfy the cravings of the soul. In all 
the excellent writers of Venusian verse whom we have 
named may be perceived the shade of melancholy, which 
lends an additional charm to their gaiety. With the 
deeper questions of the heart they very rarely inter- 
meddle. If they can touch the springs of laughter and 
emotion in others they receive their reward. These 
poets, however, have yet something to learn : England 
has its Shakspeare but not its Horace. To write 
Horatian verse successfully requires all the earnestness 
and devotion which the greater poet exhibits in another 
field. But even these trifles are not without their use and 
their charm, for they may be accepted by posterity as a 
faithful commentary upon contemporaneous events, life, 
and manners. Who knows but that through their aid in 
some distant era the stranger in our deserted gates may 
obtain some glimpses of our nineteenth-century civilisa- 
tion ; just as we now, with Horace or Martial for our 
friend and guide, may walk through the streets, and con- 
verse with the denizens, of ancient Rome ? 



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